XUS said:

---

Said another way, the Passion of the Christ only makes sense if free will is real and nothing like Calvin's view of depravity and grace.

---

Not to mention, if one does not truly have free will, then love of God becomes impossible. Coerced or forced love isn't love. If we don't have free will to choose whether or not to love God, then we cannot love Him regardless.

XUSCR said:

---

So if I am understanding the Calvinist view on free will correctly, Jesus, as the second person of the most Holy Trinity, pre-determined the eternal fate of every one of his human creatures and still felt the need to go through with the Incarnation and subject himself willingly to the unimaginable torture amd suffering of the Passion and Crucifixion, which makes him a masochist....

Said another way, the Passion of the Christ only makes sense if free will is real and nothing like Calvin's view of depravity and grace.

---

So your understanding is that God creates the world but doesnt really have the omniscience to foresee what "free will" will bring and therefore Christ dies to clean up the mess He didnt forsee. And since he didnt forsee and didnt preordain, he isn't truly God.

Or, to satisfy true Godliness, you claim he did forsee it, therefore it makes him a masochist anyway.

Here's the problem: love. We have been conditioned to believe love is feeling. "I have good vibes for you! I love you." Godly love is not emotional nor ephemeral. It is self-sacrifice. period. End of story. (You can claim its masochism, and you can take that up with God after you are dead.)

But the obvious example is the Cross. A second example is "no greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his brother." And a third example can be seen around you: look at the single mother holding down two or three jobs to feed her kids. That is self-sacrifice.

Deep down we know that love is truly self sacrifice. Can you imagine a god looking down at us, suffering and miserable, and all he will do is say "i got thoughts and prayers for ya. I love you guys, but I aint gonna die for ya."

We instinctively know that isnt love, not would our creator act that way. Because it's not His character, that's the way we act.

RetiredAg said:

---

XUS said:

---

Said another way, the Passion of the Christ only makes sense if free will is real and nothing like Calvin's view of depravity and grace.

---

Not to mention, if one does not truly have free will, then love of God becomes impossible. Coerced or forced love isn't love. If we don't have free will to choose whether or not to love God, then we cannot love Him regardless.

---

If you truly have free will, you should be able to live a sinless life RIGHT NOW.

And GO!

Yeah, so I don't blame God for my sin. I guess some do, but I don't. My sin is on me, not God.

So you admit you cant live a sinless life....as though your volition has bondage.


Where have we heard this before?

I simply said I don't blame God for my sin. Do you?

You simply moved the goalpost. If you have free will, you, right now, have the power to live sinlessly. Sins of omission and sins of commission can be entirely avoided by you because you have free will. Right?

Now, taking responsibility for your sins is cute and all, but it means every sin you commit (and omit) is your conscious, knowing, rebellion to God...and you could stop at any moment but you war against God openly because you have "free will". You do all this because you knowingly and affirmly oppose God at this very minute.

The problem is that's not what the new testament teaches.

It's not moving the goalposts at all. I mentioned how a lack of free will makes it impossible to love God. You responded with some rabbit trail of living a sinless life. Your view blames God for our sin. I don't believe God is the source of sin. I don't think so lowly of Him to believe that He is why I sin. He doesn't cause us to sin. I believe we can love God, which is impossible without free will.

You are the one that actually moved the goalposts in our exchange from the issue I raised of how a lack of free makes love of God impossible, to the issue of living a sinless life.

This is silly. The ability to decide is not the same as perfect decision making ability any more than the ability to jump being equal to being an NBA caliber basketball player. You're conflating the theoretical ability (in the sense of possibility) to perform a task with the ability (in the sense of skill) to perform the task to perfection.

I have the ability to do math. I do not have the ability to do all math to perfection: I lack the requisite training, intellect...and desire.

Similarly we lack perspective, information, desires - and yes, training - to life sinlessly.