Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: the_doc
Your explanation of free will and free agency confuses me.  I simply free-agency as the ability to choose between good and evil.
202 posted on 01/02/2002 4:28:08 AM PST by Frumious Bandersnatch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 182 | View Replies ]


To: Frumious Bandersnatch
There are a lot of terminological problems in this stuff, largely due to the fact that people don't pay close attention to what the will is.

It may help you to see where I am coming from if you go to a post I made on another thread:

The Reformers and Church Fathers on Nature, Grace, and Choice, #66

At the bottom line, it is obvious that man is a free agent. He chooses freely. Another way to say this is that man has free will in that he is free to do as he will. But the notion that man has the moral ability to choose contrary to his moral nature is false by the very definition of will.

The will always follows the nature. Unfortunately, people can't seem to keep this idea straight. This is why the Reformers opted for the free agency language over the free will language. (They discovered that every time they talked about free will, folks assumed that they were talking about the power of contrary choice--which doesn't exist anywhere in the universe. Even God doesn't have the power of contrary choice. He cannot lie, for example.)

204 posted on 01/02/2002 8:07:45 AM PST by the_doc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 202 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson