A Debate Over Free-Will, Part 4

Originally Posted by Jesus.Is.The.Gospel.  You see free-will does not blow down God's sovereignty at all because he knew it was going to happen all along and it was already planned from eternity past. Everything was planned out and decreed by God from eternity past and it came into action after God started creating everything. You see God is so sovereign that if he didn't want any of it to happen the way it happened then he just didn't have to create anything. Everything happened because God wanted it to happen that way even if the choices that these biengs made by thier will were free because even thier free wills and choices were seen in eternity past in God's mind and these free choices went along with God's ultimate plan and decree which was to glorify Christ on the cross and in the resurrection from the dead. So you see every sin that mankind commits are already planned out and decreed by God from eternity past but the sin commited is of itself from the freedom of the will of the creation. So every sin commited goes perfectly with God's plan and purpose even if they are done with a free-will because God knew all that was going to happen from beginning to end before he even began to create the heavens and the earth. Just put it this way, if God didn't want it to happen then it woudn't have ever been created or else it would have thwarted God's plans and purposes. The reason lucipher was created was because he fitted into God's purposes, the reason mankind was created was because they fitted into God's purposes even if both creations have a free-will, every decision they make was already forseen by God and carefully planned out in such a way that no free-willed decision can thwart God's purposes.

"Free-will does not blow down God's sovereignty at all because he knew it was going to happen all along and it was already planned from eternity past." - Amen! to both of those statements: God does know what is going to happen, and what will happen is planned from eternity past. Now, the question is, which of these statements is contingent upon the other? Does God know because he plans, or does He plan because he knows? 

It seems that you believe the second of those two statements, that God's planning of a thing is contingent upon his foreknowledge of it. I take this from a number of statements you make, most notably when you sum up by saying, "put it this way, if God didn't want it to happen then it woudn't have ever been created or else it would have thwarted God's plans and purposes." The problem with this is that it takes free-will out of the realm of God's sovereignty. What you are saying is that God has two options:  

1) to let those with free-will act as they wish and work out His plan around what they choose, or

2) to not create at all. 

Now, it seems apparent to me that this choice is a denial of God's providence and decrees. It makes man's will capable of frustrating God's will. But in case that remains unclear to anyone else, let me develop it more fully. 

When you talk of God's planning in this way, you are excluding the choices which come from free-will. That is, God looked into the future (I know this phrase is not very accurate, I use it simply for convenience), saw what would come of free-will, and then set to work out His plan around the results of free-will. But this assumes that what comes from free-will must be, and God cannot, or will not, touch it. So God's sovereignty works around free-will, but cannot work on free-will itself. 

According to this line of reasoning, what comes from free-will pre-exists the decree of God. It should not require any further explanation to show that this makes the free-will of man the determinative factor in what the plan of God is! God makes His plans only after He foreknows what humans will do. You yourself said that "the reason mankind was created was because they fitted into God's purposes [it sounds as if man had to exist in a certain form and God had to make sure man "fit" the plan]even if both creations have a free-will [i.e. God could not make any binding decree on the free-will of man], every decision they make was already forseen[i.e. not determined] by God and carefully planned out [i.e. but not in a determinative fashion] in such a way that no free-willed decision can thwart God's purposes [i.e. God must carefully plan, otherwise man's free-will could thwart His plan]." It must be this way in your line of thinking, because you have already said that God Himself does not decree in a determinative way. But, you say "everything was planned out and decreed by God from eternity past." If it was planned, that is the same as saying it was determined; and if it was determined, someone determined it, that is, someone must have given a determinative decree that a thing should come to pass. Who? If not God, then you must mean man's will. 

It might be tempting at this point for you to mention that God exists out of time, so to say that man's will pre-exists God's decrees is inaccurate, for God does not experience the passing of time as we do. Yet, this is simply a dodge. For in the Scriptures, when the decrees of God are mentioned, it is always with the language of time; for example, Isaiah 46:9-11: 

"I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it."

It may certainly be true that God simply uses the language of linear time to allow us to understand in our human weakness. But even then, we must concede that we aremeant to understand God's decrees as pre-existing and being independent of any action of human will. How can man's will be determinative, when it hadn't yet been created? And it was created only because of the decree of God, so how can the will of man, which only exists through God's sovereignty, somehow become utterly independent of God's sovereignty?

Now, you have made clear your motivation for maintaining that there is some kind of freedom in the will - you are concerned that we must maintain our assertion of human responsibility. I am with you on that point. But I think you have gone too far in trying to carve out a place for the human will in which God's sovereignty cannot touch it or influence or affect it in any determinative way. In so doing, you have (unwittingly, I am sure, and with good intentions) made the will into an idol, indeed something which can, in your own words, thwart the purposes of God. This is why I cannot accept any kind of "freedom" in the will, because it inevitably leads to man's will and not God's being the determinative factor in the world. 

In summary, there is only one free-will in the universe - God the Father Almighty. Our wills cannot do anything outside of what He has decreed we do. It is blasphemous and unbiblical to suggest otherwise.