Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 15 Apr, 2010 07:11 AM
I guess you refer to Genesis 3, right? You forget that after original sin was comitted, everything changed. So even if Adam had a chance, we might not have.
But let me ask you directly: Would you, now in this very minute, have the chance to reject Jesus? What cause would you have to do so? Because I think, if there is to be a chance, there has to be a cause to cause change of mind.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 15 Apr, 2010 08:24 PM
I don't believe in original sin...I believe the bible would have been pretty clear about God taking away our will. Instead He said "they have become like us, knowing good and evil". I believe original sin was a scare tactic used by the medieval church to make people lose hope and basically force them to be enslaved to the "church"...and then they had to put Mary on the same "sinless level" as Jesus or it made Jesus a born sinner. Sounds like a mess to me.
Jesus was born with the connection to God that we "receive" when we accept Jesus's sacrifice...enabling Him to live a sinless life...not through His divine nature, but through His human nature. If He did not have the same nature as we do then He could not have suffered like we suffer...He could not have been tempted like we are tempted....and the bible says He was. That's what I believe anyway. If "original sin" and "predestination" were true, then we all should be living a sinless life after we're saved...because we would have no will of our own. Under those beliefs...the fact that we still sin after "salvation" would mean that God is making us sin. We would have no free will. It would be the only explanation...and I don't believe it for a second.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 02:51 AM
@Mark:
Original sin was not made up in medieaval times, but already in ancient times. Even Paul speaks of it when he says through Adam the sin came to this world etc... but let's not go too deep on that one, you don't believe in it and I don't feel like starting a flamewar over it *grin*
Original sin doesn't leave us after being saved, I think. We still do things wrong, but we know about them being wrong, and can ask God for help...
Predestination doesn't necessarily mean we had no will on our own, only that we can do nothing to being saved. Like we can do nothing to having this or that eye- , hair- or skincolor.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 02:51 AM
@Mark:
Original sin was not made up in medieaval times, but already in ancient times. Even Paul speaks of it when he says through Adam the sin came to this world etc... but let's not go too deep on that one, you don't believe in it and I don't feel like starting a flamewar over it *grin*
Original sin doesn't leave us after being saved, I think. We still do things wrong, but we know about them being wrong, and can ask God for help...
Predestination doesn't necessarily mean we had no will on our own, only that we can do nothing to being saved. Like we can do nothing to having this or that eye- , hair- or skincolor.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 08:15 AM
I agree. Through Adam. Sin and death are in the world because of Adams sin. BIG BUT! I do not believe I am responsible for Adams sin...and that is what the original sin doctrine is founded on. "We are all responsible for the sin of Adam". Under that doctrine...even if we could live a perfect sinless life like Jesus did...we would still burn in hell for something Adam did...and I believe that is extremely unbiblical. We suffer because of the sins of our Fathers...but I do not believe we are responsible for them. I believe the only thing we lost when Adam sinned was our connection to God. Not our free will.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 12:19 PM
I don't think it's about responsibility, but about suffering, as you already said. I don't like speaking of sins as in plural, because they are something completely different from sin, as I believe.
I understand the word "sins" as another word for "evil deeds" that God doesn't want us to do. For these we are responsible, not our fathers, not our sons. But our sons will suffer from them.
I think of sin as of a condition we are under, similar to faith. If nder sin, the deeds we do are bad, if nder faith, the deeds we do are good and pleasant to God (problem ist the faith doesn't grow strong enough in us in this life to never do anything wrong again, but in faith we try to do only good things, for we love God).
When Adam ate the fruit, he subdued himself under sin rather than God and faith in Him. So sin was controlling him now. Of course he had a free will, in some way. But the basic lines were controlled by sin, by the fear what would happen if God finds out, by the fear to lose the free decision he had when listening not to God but to the serpent.
When God called him later, he would hide, not to face Him, because of the sin. He knew he had done something wrong. But he wouldn't confess and blame all others: The serpent, the woman, God Himself. That was sin, of course he took the decision to say all this, but behind it it was sin ruling him. And sin drove him away from God.
I said I think of sin as of a condition. Now we see Adam (and Eve) have done something wrong. Their children will have heard about it, and they will have had a bad example growing old. Already their children where involved in murder, later the offspring challenged God by trying to build the tower of Babylon etc etc...
We don't let our children (if we have some) watch some TV shows, hear some music or read some books because we consider them bad for their development. They could influence them to something bad. That is, what sin does. Influence us to do bad things, to sin. Like faith causes us to do good things. What the things we do are, is also dependent on us in a way. But the character of the deed won't change.
So it is not about responsibility for what Adam did, but we are contaminated and suffer from what he did. So we are responsible for our deeds, but we are influenced throughout all the generations by what he did. If we had had perfect parents who never put themselves under sin, we wold not be born under sin ourselves.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 12:23 PM
I don't think it's about responsibility, but about suffering, as you already said. I don't like speaking of sins as in plural, because they are something completely different from sin, as I believe.
I understand the word "sins" as another word for "evil deeds" that God doesn't want us to do. For these we are responsible, not our fathers, not our sons. But our sons will suffer from them.
I think of sin as of a condition we are under, similar to faith. If nder sin, the deeds we do are bad, if nder faith, the deeds we do are good and pleasant to God (problem ist the faith doesn't grow strong enough in us in this life to never do anything wrong again, but in faith we try to do only good things, for we love God).
When Adam ate the fruit, he subdued himself under sin rather than God and faith in Him. So sin was controlling him now. Of course he had a free will, in some way. But the basic lines were controlled by sin, by the fear what would happen if God finds out, by the fear to lose the free decision he had when listening not to God but to the serpent.
When God called him later, he would hide, not to face Him, because of the sin. He knew he had done something wrong. But he wouldn't confess and blame all others: The serpent, the woman, God Himself. That was sin, of course he took the decision to say all this, but behind it it was sin ruling him. And sin drove him away from God.
I said I think of sin as of a condition. Now we see Adam (and Eve) have done something wrong. Their children will have heard about it, and they will have had a bad example growing old. Already their children where involved in murder, later the offspring challenged God by trying to build the tower of Babylon etc etc...
We don't let our children (if we have some) watch some TV shows, hear some music or read some books because we consider them bad for their development. They could influence them to something bad. That is, what sin does. Influence us to do bad things, to sin. Like faith causes us to do good things. What the things we do are, is also dependent on us in a way. But the character of the deed won't change.
So it is not about responsibility for what Adam did, but we are contaminated and suffer from what he did. So we are responsible for our deeds, but we are influenced throughout all the generations by what he did. If we had had perfect parents who never put themselves under sin, we wold not be born under sin ourselves.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 01:39 PM
Well..then we're having the same problem as the other post. I guess there are a lot more definitions of original sin. Anyway...because of Adams sin we are born without a connection with God....which is why we cannot come to God on our own, but that doesn't mean there isn't a choice involved when God knocks on our door. We can either let Him in, or stop up our ears. We wouldn't even have a chance to make either of those choices if God didn't make the first move though...but once again....I don't believed it's ever forced, and I don't believe either path is permanent(to our knowledge) until we're dead. We can hope it is...but I don't believe we can know for sure...unless God tells you where you're going.
Free will "decision", Or God making Dead men come Alive?
Posted : 16 Apr, 2010 06:15 PM
It is two fold, Adam was no longer God of this world, they where then separated from God (spiritual death) and then the curse came upon the earth and the curse is still operating on the earth.
