That's because everyone keeps bringing up "free will" and I keep insisting there is no such thing. There is only God's will and man's will. God's will is good. Man's will is bad (to do the things of God). The concept of "free will" is the interjection of a third choice and implies man is capable of doing the things of God (e.g. man can choose God, man can do the works of God, man can behave and be very good). There is nothing in scripture that would back this claim of free will up.
Every Reformer that I have read will readily insist that man has a will (even Calvin). That will is held in bondage and, once free, it is capable of doing the works of God. But it is only when man's will is free can it be guided by the Holy Spirit to do the things of God. This is the technically accruate description of what happens. But there is no free will by which man can do things pleasing to God. It is impossible.
What makes our discussion seem like I described is statements such as this:
But it is only when man's will is free can it be guided by the Holy Spirit to do the things of God.
Guided not controlled. I read you writing of choices and making them, but then denying you have choices. Make sense?
I think we're, partly, in a semantical problem more than a theological one.
You are defining: choosing self is "bad" and choosing God is "good" and saying there is no free choice. I'm saying this is the choice we face every day - self or God. This is how I'm describing free will choice.
once free, it is capable of doing the works of God. But it is only when man's will is free can it be guided by the Holy Spirit to do the things of God. This is the technically accruate description of what happens. But there is no free will by which man can do things pleasing to God. It is impossible.
I think this is confusing, and I think it is confusing because it is trying to say there is free will and then that there is not. I believe it is also confusing because it's counter to our experience, a very basic human experience of making decisions.
In any given instant, deciding to follow God does not mean we are God or we create "good"; however, neither does it mean we do not have a decision to make and make it. Would you agree with this statement?
How can will be free if you empatically deny free will?!? And is "guided" understood like a divine tractor beam attached to soemone's forehead, in which case how can such a person sin or do anything to "displease" God?
Every Reformer that I have read will readily insist that man has a will (even Calvin). That will is held in bondage and, once free, it is capable of doing the works of God. But it is only when man's will is free can it be guided by the Holy Spirit to do the things of God. This is the technically accruate description of what happens. But there is no free will by which man can do things pleasing to God. It is impossible.
AMEN, Harleyd!
Our eyes are so glued to our own achievements that it is difficult to pry ourselves away from the concept that we are free and unfettered and capable of our own righteousness.
Free will was always denied by the apostles and the early church and various church fathers. With the influence of Gnosticism in the third and fourth centuries, men slowly discarded the idea that God sustains all things, and men's minds filled themselves up with their own desires rather than God's determinism.
The reformers, as you say, returned the church to the sound doctrine of predestination -- something Rome has always denied because if God controls this life, then obviously Rome and its magisterium cannot.