jimmy:
So, basically your saying that we have no free will and that God is the puppet master.
Romans 9 deals with your complaint fully:
"Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad–in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls–she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh:
“I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me:
“Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God,
choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-- prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory–even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? "
–Romans 9:11-24
Did Pharaoh have a choice, or did God force his hand?
Did Pontius Pilate and Herod have a choice in killing Jesus? How does one in your position answer Acts 4:27-28?
"Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. "
–Acts 4:27-28
Was God the author of the evils that Joseph’s brothers did to him?
"His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. But Joseph said to them, "Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. "
–Genesis 50:19-20
Could Joseph’s brothers have thwarted God’s plan and not commit the evil of selling Joseph into slavery?
How about Isaiah 10, which tells us that God makes the Assyrians attack Israel:
"Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
I send him against a godless nation,
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
But this is not what he intends,
this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
to put an end to many nations. "
–Isaiah 10:5-7
Do the Assyrians in Isaiah 10 have a choice? God tells us that he is behind their efforts to “seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.”
Later in Isaiah 10, God reminds us of man’s place in His plans:
"Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it,
or the saw boast against him who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up,
or a club brandish him who is not wood! "
–Isaiah 10:15
Someone in your position would have us believe that man (the ax) swings God (him who swings it). This is foolishness in light of Scripture.
How does one who believes in libertarian free will account for the passages above? God is clearly teaching us that he “forces” us to do evil to accomplish His work in Romans 9, Genesis 50, Acts 4, and Isaiah 10. If God doesn’t do this, as you claim, then what are these passages saying? How would God’s plans be accomplished if he was at the mercy of our choices?
Maybe I’ll start my own…
