To perceive reality as accurately as possible is ultimately a gift given by the Holy Spirit. So maybe it's not so much a "refusal" as an "inability."
IIRC you don't believe in free will or human will, but I postulate that the difference doesn't exist. We either turn our will to God's or not and therefore the refusal creates an inability. See:
Luke 22:42 New Living Translation (©2007) "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."
Christ provides an example, a clear example as to his followers that faith is an act of will and what follows is Salvation. Belief is an action.
Pythagoras' statement, “The beginning is the half of the whole" doesn't draw the conclusion you come up with Dr.
It isn't any beginning, but "the beginning" - begin wrong and you're already halfway done. Correctness from the start is critical. Like a compass needle that is just off a degree leading us further and further into error, if we begin from a false premise the result is near inevitable.
Not knowing the Bible or refusing to believe what it says because it doesn't say what we want it to say is idolatry and eisegesis. Prophets are always sent to reset the people on the right path. See: The Bible
God's will is done, regardless, which is what Jesus is saying. Read a better translation...
"Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."
Just like in the sermon on mount --
"Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..."
Christ provides an example, a clear example as to his followers that faith is an act of will
Whose will? The natural man's will or the spiritual man's will? One is left in its fallen state, unable to choose righteousness, while the other has been reborn by the Holy Spirit to "know the things of God," in order to repent, obey and believe.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" -- John 10:26-27"But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
So faith isn't "an act of will" independent of God. Faith is a gift from God to His own.
Not knowing the Bible or refusing to believe what it says because it doesn't say what we want it to say is idolatry and eisegesis.
I agree completely.
It is a very Momronesque concept to believe that Christ is not the current Prophet, that a mere man is needed to reset the people. Even Islam tries this perspective, calling Jesus a prophet but humankind needing another, more 'up-to-date' prophet. That is anathema to Christianity. We are no longer a tribal people needing to be reset collectively, for we are individually delivered by the Deliverer. Therefore our individual prophet and High Priest is Jesus, acting within us and upon us and through our lives in the presence of His Holy Spirit. He IS, not He has been.
The very notion of ascribing 'thought' to God The Creator is an anthropomorphism. We may ascribe to Jesus human traits to our liking, for He was God with us as a man, but to then reach back to the beginning with an anthropomorphic perspective is bound to be incomplete in scope. ONLY God IS before even the concept of universe comes to be. That is why John was given to write that in the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God, and in the beginning was not anything made that was not by Him. In Mormonism and other peculiar religions, the concept of eternal matter is posed as axiomatic, then things occur. But God gave to the Israelites the proper perspective ... and John was an Israelite, then a Christian Israelite when he authored the Gospel of John to be written.
Momronism teaches that god gained the attributes of godhood through exaltation. That is anathema to the teachings from God about Himself. His name is I AM, not I became.