February 19, 2011

Free Will: Adam vs. Rest of Mankind

Regarding free will, Adam was the only man who had the free will to choose either way, to sin or to receive God's blessings. Adam was the only man who, in and of himself, could have chosen to be with God and truly be with God, without external forces like God's forgiveness etc. After the fall, all of us inherited a sin nature, and as a result of our sin we became unable to choose to be with God-- in and of ourselves, we are not capable of choosing God and receiving His blessings without external forces (i.e. God's forgiveness, sacrifice etc.). Adam had the free will to sin or the free will to choose God. The rest of mankind are sinners that only have the free will to sin but do not have the free will to choose to be with God in and of themselves. So we are talking about capability... all mankind still has free will, but the range and capability of Adam's free will was greater than ours. So here we establish that man, from Adam to us, has free will. Next we'll look at how this free will can coexist with God's sovereignty, i.e. man's will does not thwart God's will against God's wishes, but God doesn't control our will and make us robots either...

No comments:

Post a Comment