I think that the position that I've arrived at is that man's free-will is little more than a logical construct based on a highly limited world view and scope.
Or to put it more succinctly, in an absolute sense, free-will does not exist.
The usual argument against this runs thus:
If God is choosing our path for us, then what choices do we have? Moreover what do our choices matter? God demands that we worship him of our own free will, but if we're predestined to damnation or salvation then how could we possibly have free will at all?
Good question, no? My answer is thus - Is man's free-will more or less important that God's Sovereignty? Is it actually possible to do something, or think something, or enact something that hasn't already been written and crafted by God Himself? I know that this is not the case.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:16
Consider these statements:
Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Romans 8:29-30
He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.
Ephesians 1:5
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.
Ephesians 1:11
The word for predestination that appears in the Greek is "proorizo". It's a word that implies a limiting in advance or something that has been determined beforehand.
How can we as limited beings possibly change or somehow influence God's Sovereign plan? What's to say that even if we do or don't do something, God didn't already determine that that was to be?
From a mathematical standpoint, if A is a set and B is another set, and and every element of A is also an element of B, then it follows that A is a subset of B.
In an absolute sense, set B has already included all the elements of A.
My supposition is that whatever man's free-will actually is (set A), it still is entirely included within the plan, design and sovereignty of God (set B).
I've carved this up every which way until Thursday and I still can not get around, or over the basic truth God's will and power is exact and perfect. It seems arrogant to think that our free-will exists outside of that.
LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
Psalm 139:1-4
Moreover I think that it's impossible to even think a thought which God hasn't already written. I haven't just compromised one statement in this thought, I've totally beaten it into submission.
http://www.bjd.au.com/blogg/show_topic.php?showbloggid=2004000462
And I refuse to compromise on either statement just so they fit into our feeble logical constructs. Or so we can use God's sovereignty as a cop out for not being doing the things that God has clearly called us too - being Holy and telling others about Jesus.
God is Sovereign, His will, His design, His thoughts and His purposes are far bigger, wider, loftier, more complicated and more coherent than anything we might come up with. Our so called "free-will" pales in the light of that; in an absolute sense, I doubt it even exists.
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