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I say God knew them before they were born and he created them in such a way that they would have make choices..They do choose what they want..but God has governed what they want before they were ever born
The problem is that because of the fall men do not really want God..they will not choose God..
Men love darkness more than the light
The grace of God makes man born again..it makes him the perfect creation that God had planned him to be before the fall.....once the man is born again his desires change and he now not only can choose God ,but he desires to choose God..
Does this make sense so far?

It does make sense, but I don't agree completely.

Having freewill that is freewill, but only within the choices set out by God isn't freewill at all.

God is outside of our time. Yet his presence his everywhere in the creation sustaining it. God can see our entire life because to him past, present and the future are indistinguisable. In that sense, I agree that we are limited in our choices...we've already made them and God knows what those choices are. He knows who his people are and always has. But he didn't make those choices. We did.

But paradoxically since we are within time, we truly have not yet made our choices. We still have complete freewill to make any decision we want. In fact, we need free will or we would not be created in the image of God.

We were created to be images of God. God's essence is love. A major part of God's character is complete free will. If we don't have free will, then we don't have Godly character.

The choice of following God is available to anyone. Anyone at any time could choose to follow God's calling and become one of the elect. The danger of us believing that only "we" are the elect is that a frame of mind is introduced that leads to an attitude of ONLY we will EVER BE the elect. This was exactly the problem that the Roman Catholic church had for so long. Only *they* were God's chosen, thus they were justified in anything they did or any attitude they held. What they failed to see was that persecuting anyone for their beliefs is the same as persecuting a brother in Christ, or at least a potential brother in Christ.

I appreciate your sharing your views on this. I think we are going to be destined to disagree, but I sincerely believe that God has the same destiny in store for us.

"Having freewill that is freewill, but only within the choices set out by God isn't freewill at all."

Huh?

What is there that is not only within the choices set out by God?

If we believe that we live in a universe that has been ordered by God, and established in accordance with His dicates, then aren't all of our choices set out by God? We do not live in a world of our own making, we didn't even choose into which part of that world, or at what time, or from what parents, etc. etc. etc. that we would be born.

Just what type of freewill are you seeking? One that is divorced from the reality of your existence?

Once again, non-Calvinists show us that they cherish a freewill that not even God possesses, since not even He can operate independent of His existence.

Having freewill that is freewill, but only within the choices set out by God isn't freewill at all.

So did YOU select your parents? Did you select the year or place of your birth? Did you select your sex or race or IQ?

All your "free will choices " happen within those boundries..I can not ever choose to be a french man or 15 years old again...do you admit that there are some "free will" choices we can not make?

If you jump from a 100 story building can you make a free will choice to change your mind at the 50th floor? Or does the superior law of gravity make that decision of no effect?

Think about this douglas..the idea of an unfettered free will is a lie of Satan...