http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxmTYz444H8

Discuss.

Is free will merely believing that you are acting of your own accord?

I can't see the vid from work so I can't comment on that, but I did see Ravi over the weekend. In the Q&A session Saturday someone asked him about his take on Calvinism and Predestination vs Free Will. I can't recall his exact words, I hope to get a recording, but he started off with something about how whom God ordained we crucified. He mentioned something about not putting God in a box. He ended the point with the utimate danger being that if we followed through we would call God the author of evil.

I was completly let down by his answer. He made a lot of great points during the lectures but he TOTALLY dropped the ball.

This free will crap is complete nonsense. The root of this issue always has a person focusing on himself and his decision to receive Christ. Election happens first. God's Will over his creation. I give God, Almighty Sovereign God, the glory for his love for me and his Free Will choice over me.

Does your free will choice to choose Christ show your righteousness? So maybe you weren't perfectly righteous, but you were righteous in your decision to choose Christ so you must have some. Rubbish. Humble yourself. Your corruption is total. You had no hope in yourself. Never lose sight that God elects.

The extent of our freedom is a charade. We are slaves to sin apart from Christ. What freedom over will does a slave have? If a slave has freedom to execute his own full complete will, then he must not be a slave at all. This isn't so hard to understand guys.

2 more points. There is a responsibility of a person to come to Christ seeking repentance and forgiveness. On the outside this looks as though a person has made a choice and that is fine, but on the inside when we have studied God's word our view changes. All glory goes to God. Everything is completely done for a person to make that choice. No person who is elect doesn't make that choice.

This information is not the Gospel. It's not what you share to win people to Christ.

can you elaborate on this statement?

This information about free will and predestination is not part of the Gospel, i.e. the idea that we need Christ as a payment for punishment.

Because it is not fundamental to the Gospel presentation, it's not necessary. However because it is doctrine, it should be studied. It is in the scriptures for the purpose of being understood so that it too may be used to glorify God.

actually it is necessary, otherwise it leads to a man centered "gospel"...the kind of false gospel that Osteen teaches (and Schuller before him)

I don't think you understand my point. I don't bring up predestination when I go out to evangelize. I don't see the point in introducing the calvinism vs arminianism argument in my presentation. I think you would agree.

Everything is predetermined, it's all math.

sure, but you do bring up "TULIP" (i.e. totally depraved), the concept that, unless God moves on the human heart, there is nothing in us that seeks after Him...this goes back to ark-man's argument that everything humans do is ultimately self motivated, which is true of the carnal minded person

I agree but this is only the 'T' part. You can weird people out with the deja vu predestination stuff.

I finally got a chance to view this. I ask where does the bible give anyone the idea that there is such a thing as free will?

Isn't unregenerate man a slave to sin?

When you put it into perspective, all mammals have free will naturally. Even to survive. It is required. Not God granted.