Did Jesus have free will?

[Bohm_Bawerk]

Was Jesus predestined to be Mankind’s Saviour? As a human being, couldn’t He have simply done another occupation (perhaps, to follow His foster father Joseph, into carpentry) as opposed to starting His ministry?

Thank you,
**Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk **

 

[bethie1218]

Are you Catholic?
You mention predestination, a favorite Protestant concept in your questions, so I am curious.
Jesus lived His life for all of us.
God is love. Love can’t be cut any more than a moving river can be cut. The love flows and does what love does.
Beth

 

[trinichiqn]

Yes He did.

Agony in the garden - “Not My Will but Yours” when He prayed for the cup to be taken from Him.

 

[SeaShoreGirl]

Yep, but He did give it over to God. Jesus even spoke “Not My Will but Yours be done” Which clearly indicates that He had a will free to choose what it wanted. He freely gave that Will over to God for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

[k8e308]

I’m not qualified to answer all the ins and outs of your question, but I think the short answer is ‘yes’. Jesus was fully man so he had free will. His free-will obedience to the Father’s Will is what redeemed mankind and allowed for salvation.

If Jesus had chosen another occupation he would not have been following God’s Will, and that would have been sinful, but he was free to make that choice. That is why his sacrifice is redemptive: as a Person of the Trinity, he chose to come to save us; as a man, he still chose to walk the way of Calvary and die for our sins. Our salvation comes down to our choice to accept or reject God, but mankind’s redemption (and therefore our individual salvation) was only made possible by Christ’s choice to accept God’s Will.

 

[FCCopleston]

Was Jesus predestined to be Mankind’s Saviour? As a human being, couldn’t He have simply done another occupation (perhaps, to follow His foster father Joseph, into carpentry) as opposed to starting His ministry?

Thank you,
**Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk **

Your question implies the existence of “two Christ’s,” one divine and one human. Christ’s incarnation united the two natures of Christ in such a way that they are inseparably united and yet never confused.

As a man, Christ experienced hunger, thirst, tiredness, growth in knowledge, etc.

As God, Christ is eternal, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, etc.

Jesus was predestined to be the Savior of the world, since He was the Lamb slain before the world’s foundation. However, the implication that this predestination in some way occurred apart from or counter to His free will is a meaningless question.

In Christ,
FCCopleston

 

[FCCopleston]

Are you Catholic?
You mention predestination, a favorite Protestant concept in your questions, so I am curious.
Jesus lived His life for all of us.
God is love. Love can’t be cut any more than a moving river can be cut. The love flows and does what love does.
Beth

Predestination is not a novelty of Protestantism.

Rather, it was hi-jacked and perverted by Protestants from such theologians as St. Augustine and St. Aquinas.

The divine and human will of Christ cannot be separated from one another. They are inseparably united through the incarnation.

In Christ,
FCCopleston

 

[Betterave]

Was Jesus predestined to be Mankind’s Saviour? As a human being, couldn’t He have simply done another occupation (perhaps, to follow His foster father Joseph, into carpentry) as opposed to starting His ministry?

Thank you,
**Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk **

I believe he did follow Joseph into carpentry. But as a man of about thirty years he freely chose to follow the calling of the Spirit (into his preaching ministry). We believe there are two wills in Christ, and by his human will he freely chose obedience to the divine will, thus providing an exemplary rectification of Adam’s disobedience.