Quote:
Originally Posted by Chan
Well, I did suggest that we needed to avoid confusing the ability to choose with the right to choose. However, I'm simply raising the question. Note the following from the original post:
When we say someone has "free will," are we saying - as in the American sense - that an individual has the RIGHT to exercise his will as he sees fit: that he has the RIGHT to choose or not choose? The way the term is commonly used, it sounds as if this is exactly what people mean - that we have the right to choose or not choose. Now, applying this to the Pelagian doctrine of free will, are we saying that God gives human beings the RIGHT to choose not to obey Him, to choose not to respond to the gospel call, etc.? Further, if we are saying humans have the RIGHT to choose or not choose, then on what basis does God have the right to punish humans for exercising a right that He supposedly gave them? If "free will" means the right to choose or not choose, if "free will" means humans have a certain degree of absolute sovereignty, then there is no basis for God to punish sin (transgression against the law of God) since "free will" in the American sense of being "free" implies having the right to exercise one's will as one chooses.
However, since God clearly does punish sin, and is perfectly righteous and just in doing so, this contradicts the notion of "free will" as it was discussed in the previous paragraph. So, how do we reconcile the seeming contradiction? We must say either that man does not have "free will" or that "free will" means something other than the right to choose or not choose. Could "free will" in this context mean merely having the capacity or ability to choose without necessarily having the right to choose? If we say, for example, that someone has the capacity or ability to rob a bank, that doesn't mean he has the right to rob a bank and, if caught, he will surely be punished for it. If what we're really talking about here is having the inherent capacity to choose or not choose the things of God, then is what we're talking about really free will or is it simply the state of having a will? Does having the capacity to choose mean that we also have the right to choose and, thus, that we have absolute sovereignty over our own lives?
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We are given "freewill" within the boundaries of our lives. These boundaries--one's nationality and native tongue, hertiage, race, looks and body shape, one's intelligence, the century in which one is born, one's health. These boundaries, one has little or no control over, they are determined by God.
These boundaries determine all of the choices one make in life, so you could say one does not have freewill because these boundaries or influences CAUSE one's choices. Therefore one's will is caused by God.