(Continued)

I do think many times our options are restrained. And that God leads us in one direction (because we follow Him) or leads us in a different direction (hardening our hearts because of sin or because of continual rejection of Him and His direction). These two aspects I think do occur, but they don't remove our free will. Instead they are more likely a consequence of our choices towards God and towards sins committed against each other. There's always the choice to turn from our sins, wrong doing, and evil natures. Even your example of someone who likes to murder can turn from this. It's not his brain it's the person himself. That said our previous choices often direct us and harden our hearts from see past what we've seen.

That doesn't remove our ability to choose though. We can readily see how easy it is to choose different clothes in the morning, or a different path when walking or driving, or any other choice we make. This simple observation should be a grounding one. We have a choice and a will, because we can observe the freedom we have to make our choices.

Does that make more sense?

Yuyutsu,

<<Nor can your puny mind which believes that you are just a small entity, separate from all others, survive the light once you are with God.>>

From where did you gain that view of God?

<<Salvation is when we wake up from this delusion of smallness, to realise who we truly eternally are and always were>>.

That might be your view, but it is not that of the biblical Scriptures.

"... Believe in the Lord Jesus , and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:31).

"Jesus said to him [Thomas], 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (John 14:6).

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

There is no hint of waking up from my delusion of who I was and am eternally.

Your view of salvation is not coming from the Christian Scriptures. What is your source of information about salvation?

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

«The issue here is that if the second option is true, then we live in a strange illusion of having a free will, but really have none.»

But we DO have free will - the strange illusion is as if that free will that we invest in our body/mind/person, is instead generated by our body/mind/person itself.

Your observation that our options are restrained is correct and makes great sense: our past actions have set our body/minds on a particular course and (unless we are sages/prophets who perform miracles that affect the physical directly, rather than via our minds) we can only change that course over time: like turning around a heavy ship, the change is not immediate. Say you drank alcohol heavily, then you cannot immediately "choose" to walk and drive straight, but you can choose to stop drinking, then a day or two later your sphere of choice will broaden.

---

Dear OzSpen,

My source of information is scripture, mainly the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita, including not just my private reading but also scripture-classes that I am so fortunate to attend.

The question of free-will for example is addressed in the first khanda of the Kena Upanishad: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=CGbhBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT25&lpg=PT25&dq=%22willed+by+whom+propelled+by+whom%22&source=bl&ved=2ahUKEwjHgNSZ0NDeAhUI7WEKHeb6DdsQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22willed%20by%20whom%20propelled%20by%20whom%22

I accept Jesus' famous statement: "No one comes to the Father except through me", because I believe Jesus to be among those relatively-few who knew who they truly are: God. Thus when Jesus said "me", he didn't refer to that specific human, son-of-Joseph-and-Mary who lived 2000 years-ago, but rather to who he truly is.

The bible is not explicit about who we are. It discusses the origins and the fall of mankind and how to remedy it, but nowhere does it says "and that is what you are". Genesis 3 for example speaks only in third person: "But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”", or "To the woman he said,..." - it never claims that you are that man/woman to which God spoke, it just instructs you how to use your free will correctly in conducting that human which you (falsely) consider to be yourself.

Yuyutsu. Let's put the terms of our beliefs out in the open. So that we can see that they are different.

To you, you believe that free will exists, but not to individuals. Is that correct? That being an individual is an illusion to who we really are, a collection that is in essence God. Is that accurate? And also that we as God have free will, but not as individuals. Does that in one way or another surmise your position on free will and part of your views on us and God? Or is there more to the matter to add to it or correct what I've pieced together.

To me I believe that God is seperate from us. He made us but He is not us. He is in charge and in control, but even with that our choices are part of His design, and don't excape His notice. With that in mind we have free choice as individuals, and can be understood by the general observations of our choices and our lives, as well as in the words in the bible that continually repeats the message to repent and turn from our sins. If we didn't have a free will to choose our own actions (as individuals) then there would be no use in the message to repent and to turn from our sins.

(Continued)

(Continued)

Both observation and some understanding of the bible give me the understanding that we (as individuals) have a free will. What we don't have is a garentee to be successful in what we choose, nor even do we always have all the options there to choose from. In some cases, it's described that God kept some from committing a sin, in other cases it's described that God gave people over to their sins instead of trying to save them and protect them. In the New Testiment Jesus says that no one can come to Him unless God helps them come to Jesus. And no one can stay without God's help.

Those are some of the things that can make a Christian believe there is no free will. But again even with those, throughout the bible a consistent message is to repent and turn to God. With this in mind, regardless of God's control in our lives and in the world, we have the ability to choose and to be free in the choices we have before us. And one choice seems to always be there. To seek God.

Sorry for giving my perspective more explaination. But I thought it was needed to show a differentiation between your views and mine (as well as those that are like my own).

Yuyutsu,

<<The bible is not explicit about who we are. It discusses the origins and the fall of mankind and how to remedy it, but nowhere does it says "and that is what you are".>>

That's false! 'So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them' (Genesis 1:27).

Also, after listing a range of sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10), the apostle Paul, in the Christian Scriptures, stated: 'Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God' (1 Cor 6:11).

Human beings are a unity of the physical (body) and the immaterial(Eccl 12:7; Matt 10:28; 1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 4:16; 7:1; James 2:26).

The Bible describes the invisible, immaterial aspects of people as soul, spirit, heart, intellect, will, conscience, and emotions.

<<I accept Jesus' famous statement: "No one comes to the Father except through me", because I believe Jesus to be among those relatively-few who knew who they truly are: God. Thus when Jesus said "me", he didn't refer to that specific human, son-of-Joseph-and-Mary who lived 2000 years-ago, but rather to who he truly is.>>

That's a Yuyutsu eclectic invention. It does not come from the biblical Scriptures but from the mind of Yuyutsu. You also want to integrate Hindu and Judeo-Christian Scriptures to get your view of God and Jesus. God said not to do that:

+ 'I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me' (Isaiah 45:5).

+ 'Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent' (John 17:3).

It was you who stated you are God and I am God. No sir! There is only one true God, the LORD, and he is not Yuyutsu or OzSpen.