“Free” Will and Love An argument for free will is…

5 years ago • June 1, 2021 • by ourCOG

“Free” Will and Love

An argument for free will is that it is through free will that we can freely choose to love God. That without free will we cannot choose to love Him free of any influencing factors determined by Him that would cause us to love Him.

In thinking about free will along those lines, and the gamble and risk God would take in creating us, knowing that the potential was there for us to choose to love Him but that we could also choose sin and evil in opposition to Him, and that the consequences of choosing sin and evil would be eternal torment; does it not seem like a selfish choice on God’s part? That for the sake of a few who would choose to love Him, He would gamble and put at risk multitudes who would not choose to love Him and who as a result would be in torment for all eternity?

If we argue that He did not know, or that He did not anticipate such a result, would that not make God limited? If He did know, does it not show selfishness?

That does not seem right.

The truth is that He did not in fact give us free will hoping that by doing so at least some of us would freely choose to love Him.

The truth is that His is the initiating choice. Not ours.

And the Bible seems to agree; for it does not say that we FIRST chose to love Him, and then He loved us. Rather, it says that He FIRST chose to love us, and then we loved Him.

“We love him, because he FIRST loved us.”
– 1 John 4:19 King James Version (KJV)

Categories: #ourCOG Tags: free

Discussion

41 comments

Peggy Kalivoda says:

April 19, 2020 at 12:10 pm

Amen to that!

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Larry Koester says:

April 19, 2020 at 12:22 pm

Yes unless gmGod gives us his gift og mfcfaith we remain as we are born haterd of God and spiritually dead. And any talk of God is nonse of human wishful thinking for agod if his kwn imaginatiion.

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Jared Hamilton says:

April 19, 2020 at 12:40 pm

Is there one SPECK of righteousness in the Judgement if the actions of us as puppets were predestined? I say the Glory of God, the Righteousness of God, and the message of the Gospel(GODS WORD) are all reduced by this false doctrine of predestination.

Along with the other angles we all know.

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Roberta Jackson says:

April 19, 2020 at 12:51 pm

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Deundrell Asbell says:

April 19, 2020 at 1:05 pm

I was thinking about freewill the other day and realized how God has shown us what will happen if he does not intervene. he gives us this information in Israelite history. Look at the story of Noah, all of those people died because they, according to their own free will, chose to reject the words of Noah. This is the result of our free will.

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VaajLeng Yang says:

April 19, 2020 at 1:10 pm

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Theodore A. Jones says:

April 19, 2020 at 1:12 pm

“For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” Romans 2:12

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Lorna Isaacs says:

April 19, 2020 at 2:21 pm

Trust and obey there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.Why because we choose to love the Lord our God with all our soul……All over the above just to say AMEN.

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Caleb Jackson says:

April 19, 2020 at 2:27 pm

I would disagree . I don’t think God took a “gamble on people”. God could have simply known who was going to accept him freely, and arrange the world to get the maximum number of people to enter Heaven. Those who are unsaved are damned because there is no situation in which they would have accepted Christ.

If we do not have free will, then it seems peculiar why God did not initiate everyone to be saved, since he clearly desires for everyone to be saved (1 Tim 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9). Given that God wants everyone to be saved, and that God has the ability to save everyone, it would follow that everyone is saved.

But if you’re not a universalist, as most Christians aren’t, then you’ve got to give an explanation for why the conclusion does not follow from the premises. I think the best explanation would be human free will.

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Eric Dupree says:

April 19, 2020 at 2:30 pm

Exactly!

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Kate Marie Wendi says:

April 19, 2020 at 3:00 pm

John 6:37.

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Jono Rosie says:

April 19, 2020 at 3:07 pm

That quote by RC Sproul is not contrary to the non-Calvinist free willing belief. God chose us at the cross (grace), now it’s up to us to choose Him through faith in Christ. By grace through faith.

Selfish of God? The more people that are created, the more that glorify Him. He is worthy.

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Jono Rosie says:

April 19, 2020 at 3:14 pm

Neither of my parents nor any of my three siblings are Christian. If God didn’t let 2 hell-bound people be born (saving 5 people from hell), then I would not have been created to glorify and worship Him. God would receive less glory and worship by preventing hell-bound people to be born.

Thus, God allows people to be created, knowing that they’ll end up in hell, because the more people there are the more Christians there are. The more Christians there are, the more glory and worship He receives.

And He is worthy! Arguing that that’s selfish of God is clearly based on an unfortunately low understanding of who God is.

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John Eksted says:

April 19, 2020 at 3:33 pm

Without God’s intervention no one would be saved. No one would chose God.

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Matthewa Willis says:

April 19, 2020 at 3:48 pm

Is that not the same risk anyone takes when they have a child? Just on a smaller scale?

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Stan Wosnicki says:

April 19, 2020 at 4:07 pm

Anyone consider that God allows you free will specifically to show you that without Him you really can’t accomplish much.
Your free to choose your path in all your decisions.
Everyone is responsible for their own decisions.
You put yourselves where you eventually finish.

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John Camara says:

April 19, 2020 at 5:01 pm

Here’s a question.

Do we want to love a God who creates 100 people and gives them free will with the hope that at least some will freely love Him, and who knows that others will not love Him, and which as a result only 10 end up loving Him, but the other 90 go to eternal torment because they did not choose to love Him?

Something is wrong with that theological concept, that states we have free will so that we can choose to love God freely.

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Richard Spence says:

April 19, 2020 at 5:42 pm

?So where is the free will?
It is not the free will to love Him. HE loved us FIRST. Our free will/choice is to love Him in return or not. Free will to make choices. The consequence is also our. God just does not allow us to make choices and avoid the consequences. L&P

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Kirk A. Booher says:

April 19, 2020 at 6:00 pm

I posted my take on free will this morning and it has yet to be approved. I wonder if there is bias or a backup?

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John Camara says:

April 19, 2020 at 6:05 pm

He made the first move that motivated us to love Him in return. We did not choose to love Him from a vacuum or a void. We base our love on a reason. A factor. His love for us. So are we “freely” choosing to love Him, or are we loving Him for a reason that determines our choice, namely His love for us?

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Herb Van Schoick says:

April 19, 2020 at 6:19 pm

Yes, the problem with freewill is that we freely choose to run from God until he tracks us down.

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Jason NightHawk says:

April 19, 2020 at 6:33 pm

I guess we have no choice in the matter at all. We must be able to sin all we want to if we are already predetermined to go to Heaven. As well as those that are doomed to hell from the start cannot repent, be born again, live a fruitful Christian life, and get to Heaven. I’m so thankful that God isn’t cruel like that and that Jesus died for EVERYONE, not just the “predetermined” or so called elect. Nothing but doctrine twisting and misinterpretation. Ye must be born again.

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Zach Payne says:

April 19, 2020 at 11:55 pm

You assume God is like some dude where his wingman (us in this situation) are trying to talk someone into wanting God and God is just like “nah” lol. At least that’s the picture I got in my head lol. It takes both but two things to consider. First, God has made the advance more than we can count. Romans 1:20 paints that perfectly clear. Second, this mindset takes away our culpability. “I’m not rejecting God he just hasn’t drawn on me.” With any potential for doing good there is always the same potential for doing evil. Every relationship has that. Think of spouse or children it’s the same concept. He could honestly force us to be with him but that would be far from loving. This mindset puts all the blame on God when it is ours to begin with. Think about it. Adam and eve had it made. Hang out with God and take care of the garden, make babies. Sounds good to me lol. They had one job and blew it. We’re selfish and sinful. God proved his selflessness by repeatedly saving us. He is not to blame for someone’s rejection of him.

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Daniyyel Yisra'el Judah says:

April 20, 2020 at 12:21 am

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Monique Davis says:

April 20, 2020 at 1:02 am

Why do people try to humanize God?

There are no gambles and risks for Him to take. Everything is in His control, and He’s created All things. That includes what’s inside all things and how all things work and He controls All outcomes at His discretion. He knows al outcomes and all that will happen before the outcomes. Made started and calibrated time and He expands and contracts it at His will. He made all things you see and don’t see.

You need to have the right mindset and reverence for God.

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Paul Norman Hanover says:

April 20, 2020 at 1:35 am

1. There has to be an effectual call before any person can truly come to God and be born again.
2. God commands that we respond positively in the Scripture to that call. He commands it as an imperative and punishes those who don’t. This requires an implication that we MUST choose to accept that call.
3. God uses foreknowledge and election to decide who He will call, therefore the selection process is already decided. So, where’s the choice?
4. Here’s the tricky part. Buckle up. For Him to justly punish those who reject, and elect those God calls, God must be using foreknowledge to know who would accept him, decide to bring those people into being at His sovereign time and place of choosing, knowing we will accept Him. That’s why He calls and elects, because we will choose to accept. He makes us knowing we will choose Him and He calls us because we will choose Him.
5. If he were to knowingly make certain people that He knows would reject Him, that’s a human accountability for their rejection. He doesn’t call them, because they are a waste of time. They will ultimately reject God even if prompted. So there’s no need to prompt them. If however, we suggest a just God makes people on purpose just to send them to Hell in torment forever for their sins which they had no hope of getting out of, then that God is not just.
6. Let’s be clear. We all deserve Hell. We were all depraved. However, if God threw life rafts to some, and let the others drown, just because of His sovereign whims, because He decides that’s what He wants, that He purposely makes people just to die and go to Hell and there was never any hope for them and they aren’t making a choice, like continually choosing the path of destruction, then God is responsible for their torment and God is the author of their destruction. That is intolerable, unconscionable, and unjust. And that is not at all what God does. God elects and calls based on foreknowledge of whether we will respond to the Holy Spirit’s conviction. It is not a work, or an action, but the heart choice of surrender. It doesn’t mean we deserve it or earn it. But it does mean we choose to love Him back and surrender to Him. And He does everything else.
7. That’s the only way the Gospel of salvation from God’s wrath coupled with election makes any sense at all.

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VaajLeng Yang says:

April 20, 2020 at 1:52 am

Calvinism is not Biblical

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Gareth Williams says:

April 20, 2020 at 3:47 am

An horse can be drawn to water but he doesn’t have to drink it ?

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Deundrell Asbell says:

April 20, 2020 at 8:12 am

Grace is God’s intervention into mans life. Without this intervention we are like those in the days of Noah. Yes he could very well save everybody but according to his good pleasure he chooses to save some instead of allowing everyone to go to hell, which he could rightly do. Whether he saves some, none, or everyone(which he does not) he is justified and sovereign.

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VaajLeng Yang says:

April 20, 2020 at 11:05 am

Deundrell Asbell

God actually wanted everyone, but… only Noah was chosen because of his obedience, right?

Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.
Genesis 6:22 ESV

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Olaoluwa Victor says:

April 20, 2020 at 2:27 pm

EXACTLY

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George Haithcock says:

April 20, 2020 at 6:39 pm

You must study before you start throwing every body under the bus because you do not agree with them

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Daniel Marvin says:

April 20, 2020 at 9:12 pm

Your argument is: That for the sake of a few who would choose to love Him, He would gamble and put at risk multitudes who would not choose to love Him and who as a result would be in torment for all eternity?

As a rational argument, here are a few issues:
You assume that God values all souls the same, or similarly enough such that the relative “weight” of “few saved” vs “many lost” has some significance. Note that my Calvinist friends have no issues with acknowledging that God simply loves some more than others.
You assume that hell is eternally conscious torment for all the lost, even though that is just one interpretive choice.
Personally, I find that your 1rst assumption is consistent with the Biblical presentation of God (John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9) and your 2nd assumption to be inconsistent. For me, this resolves the conflict as it removes the “eternal conscious torment” from the equation and replaces it with permanent and appropriately painful destruction.

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Denise Hutchinson says:

April 21, 2020 at 10:00 am

No one calls on God for they think it’s foolishness. I can do nothing apart from the Lord. He calls and His sheep know His voice. Thank God!!!

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VaajLeng Yang says:

April 21, 2020 at 11:51 am

Denise Hutchinson

And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.”
Acts 10:22 ESV

Read the Bible and stop following man made doctrines.

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Denise Hutchinson says:

April 21, 2020 at 12:44 pm

He wishes to lose none.

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George Haithcock says:

April 21, 2020 at 5:12 pm

What u mean “wishes” scripture clear there no chance he will lose any he has called to himself.

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Francis Jesulobatemi says:

April 21, 2020 at 9:53 pm

Sir I think we need to let this pre selection issue rest. for the opposition it seems to make God wicked and for the proponents it’s about God’s sovereignty. The truth is that WE can’t know who will be saved or who wouldn’t. Someone asked Jesus’are there few that will be saved’? You know what the Lord answered.
Let’s strive to enter in……. Thanks

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Brandon Chapman says:

April 22, 2020 at 5:01 pm

Who’s “we”? Does that mean God took the initiative absolutely with everyone past present and future? Or did God not take the initiative with some, thus not loving them/everyone?

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James A. Henson says:

April 22, 2020 at 5:20 pm

We must each remember all good things we receive is from
God…including our salvation.

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“Free” Will and Love An argument for free will is… #ourCOG – ourcog says:

June 1, 2021 at 12:00 pm

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