I hope that I admit my blindness to what I cannot see, but also lovingly testify to what I do see.

Actually in my quote

I was returning us to the main point of this post. The will of a blind man cannot open his own eyes. Only God can do that.

Right, we can’t fly to the moon, either, merely by a desire to do so.

But we can make choices. And that’s all free will is.

Paidon, your last post explains precisely the heart of why we cannot seem to agree. We have different understandings of the philosophical meaning of ‘free will’.

If all ‘free will’ means is that we have the ability to make choices, then I agree we have ‘free will’. But in this discussion that is not all that it means. Sure all humans have the ability to make choices, but only within the bounds of their nature, just as a piece of rotten fruit is free to be everything that a piece of rotten fruit is. However a piece of rotten fruit cannot remove its own rottenness. And neither can unregenerate man love God or another. It is only within his nature to love self. The Holy Spirit must work that change. Thankfully that is his very specialty.

But I am repeating myself, sorry about that.

According to your analogy, we have no more ability to choose than a piece of rotten fruit.

When I say we have the ability to choose, I mean it just that way. If I ask you whether you want pumpkin pie or blueberry, you can choose either of them. You may say you are constituted so as to prefer blueberry, and therefore you could not have chosen pumpkin. While admitting that you have a predisposition to take the blueberry, I say nonetheless, that could have chosen to take the pumpkin.

Indeed, this is the very definition of “free will”:

The title of this is Universalism + Free Will = One Very Strange Bird. How about a song dedicated to strange birds?

According to your analogy, we have no more ability to choose than a piece of rotten fruit.
When I say we have the ability to choose, I mean it just that way. If I ask you whether you want pumpkin pie or blueberry, you can choose either of them. You may say you are constituted so as to prefer blueberry, and therefore you could not have chosen pumpkin. While admitting that you have a predisposition to take the blueberry, I say nonetheless, that could have chosen to take the pumpkin.

Indeed, this is the very definition of “free will”:

No Paidion I think it is only the definition of “a will” not necessarily a free will. Free means unencumbered and in your example the choice is encumbered as it usually is in most instances. The difference could be semantics yet it could be significant because the degree of freedom we have in our choices may correlate with the degree of responsibility and accountability we have.

Hi everyone, just wanted to chime in here.

I actually heard Chuck Swindoll when he made this statement. I’m not a huge fan of his, but it does IMO have a little to do with what we are discussing here.

by Charles Swindoll

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

I have always liked this, and to some extent, try to live by it.

Let’s take a station break, with another strange bird song

What I am positing is that it is more complex and interlaced than either pole of the debate likes to acknowledge, because mystery is offensive to the carnal mind. That is why(imo) there is such division, because man, in his mind, likes to define the undefinable beyond the limits of his perception, and rarely yields, even in the face of scriptures that contradict his views.

Just to clarify your language choices do not match what I understand the Bible to say about our will and God’s will. God did not make puppets. Only he is a God big enough that could make living being with minds, wills, and emotions. Human beings make choices as the Bible is clear.

Yet because he is a loving father there are some choices he makes for us out of pure loving grace that we have no choice in. For example he chose to pay for our sin, in fact against the will of Peter and against all our self-righteous wills. Our will had no part of that. He also chose to accept the sacrifice of Christ as the guarantee of the salvation of all mankind. Our will had no part of that either. That was a deal between the Father and the Son.

Now regarding our decision to be happy about this good news, we observe that a few are, while most are not. This is a decision that must be made by each individual. We observe the a few have trusted Christ, while most do not. Why? Our birth nature of self-righteousness cannot make this choice without a change by the Holy Spirit. God does not make the choice for us, but the Holy Spirit frees us from our corrupted nature, effectively influencing us to make the decision, each one at the time of his choosing.

Here’s my favorite “strange bird” song

Randy, seriously? Please show some respect for the discussion even if we disagree.

Like I mentioned before, Jeff - I follow the Holy Fools tradition, which is a valid historical Christian tradition, started in the Russian Orthodox Church. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone here to NOT be true to their Christian beliefs and practices - would you?

I am not familiar with the ideals of that tradition nor whether it is ‘valid’ or not. However, I thought the goal of this forum and Christian discipleship and discussion was to grow closer to the tradition of Christ himself, thus happily closer to one another. I thoroughly enjoy laughter and laugh a lot, yet the ministry of Christ also communicated serious truths with serious implications. Differences might be laughable, insignificant, or very significant.

Does the Holy Fools tradition allow for persuasion, correction, sympathy, pain, rebuke, serious matters?

I would suggest reading the Wiki link here entitled Foolishness for Christ. Then you might understand where I am coming from, along with the historical context of the tradition. And I might just ask some questions - in the matter of Socrates - to understand where you are coming from.

sure please ask, public or private is fine.

First things first. Did you read the Wiki article in its entirety? And if you label a topic with the words “free will”, “universalism” and “strange bird”, expert someone - like myself - to focus on the “strange bird” aspect.

Randy, you raised some good questions, perhaps off topic from the title of this post, so I created a new post over here [Holy Fools tradition and Restorationist discussion). Hope to talk to you more there.

Just to clarify your language choices do not match what I understand the Bible to say about our will and God’s will. God did not make puppets. Only he is a God big enough that could make living being with minds, wills, and emotions. Human beings make choices as the Bible is clear.

Yet because he is a loving father there are some choices he makes for us out of pure loving grace that we have no choice in. For example he chose to pay for our sin, in fact against the will of Peter and against all our self-righteous wills. Our will had no part of that. He also chose to accept the sacrifice of Christ as the guarantee of the salvation of all mankind. Our will had no part of that either. That was a deal between the Father and the Son.

Now regarding our decision to be happy about this good news, we observe that a few are, while most are not. This is a decision that must be made by each individual. We observe the a few have trusted Christ, while most do not. Why? Our birth nature of self-righteousness cannot make this choice without a change by the Holy Spirit. God does not make the choice for us, but the Holy Spirit frees us from our corrupted nature, effectively influencing us to make the decision, each one at the time of his choosing.

The notion that God chooses people is foreign to me. In think this idea has been perpetuated throughout the ages by the ruling classes, those of “royal blood” who were “chosen” by their gods to enlighten others, who unfortunately were not given the capabilities to make decisions for themselves. The majority of humans, being just stupid animals, corrupt in their very nature just didn’t know any better. However, I was taught differently. As in Genesis 1:27, God created man in His own image, male and female He created them. We have part of the divine nature instilled in both our hearts and minds. We love and care for others, we have compassion, forgiveness, joy, etc. etc. Yes, we also have hate, greed, etc. etc. In this we have a choice, for love cannot be forced, it must be given freely or else it is not true. The sooner we choose to follow the things that God has put in our hearts and minds the better because we just end up wasting time.
Jeff, each of us is born with the divine nature as well. I think that this has much more of an influence on our lives and in the decisions that we make. I believe that a majority of people are good.