Did Christ have free will?

[brianbbs67]

Did Jesus/Yeshua/whateverhisname have free will. We see him quote" the son can only do as the father has instructed". Or was he so devoted to the father it never was an issue?

So, was he locked into the doctrine? Or could he act of his will? I can see examples of both. What do you all see?

[Divine Insight]

I have rejected these Biblical stories for many reasons, and what you have just mentioned is definitely among those reasons.

Jesus could not fail.

Why? Because this was all supposedly "God's Plan". God impregnated Mary for the purpose of creating Jesus as his only begotten Son to become the ultimate sacrifice to make possible the salvation of all men. Therefore if Jesus had failed, then "God's Plan" would have failed, and ultimately God would have failed. We certainly can't have that.

Therefore Jesus could not fail. That could not have been an option. Thus Jesus could not have had free will choice to choose to do this. There could not be a choice that would lead to anything other than success.

For this reason, the entire story fails miserably. I won't go into precisely why that necessarily follows. It should be obvious once it is realized that Jesus could not fail.

~~~~~

Some Christian theologians and apologists claim that Jesus was actually the Father God incarnated, or at least some facet of the Father God. (i.e. the Trinity hypothesis)

However, that doesn't help. In fact, if Jesus was God himself, or even a facet of the essence of God, then once again, we have a situation where Jesus (God himself in this case) could not possibly fail in this mission. After all, how could a supposedly omnipotent omniscient creator of all that exists fail at anything?

~~~~~~

So clearly nothing helps. Jesus as an independent sovereign soul could not have failed. So he could not have had free will. Jesus as an incarnation of God doesn't evade this original problem. So there is no way out.

The story cannot be true. It necessarily has to be a very poorly-thought-out collection of superstitious rumors.

By the way, if it was "God's Plan" to have the Pharisees insist on the crucifixion of Jesus then the Pharisees would have been doing the "Will of God". So they should be in heaven now being praised for having been so obedient to "God's Plan" to have Jesus brutally crucified for the salvation of mankind.

In fact, we should all be on our knees thanking the Pharisees for their role in saving our souls. Without them we could not have been "saved".

And Jesus himself could not have had any choice in the matter, so there's no reason to thank him.

[brianbbs67]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

One could fullfil God's will by choice too. The last couple paragraphs of your reply I can agree with mostly. (Pharisees made it possible ) He came for "the lost sheep of Israel first". In his reported words.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

One could fullfil God's will by choice too. The last couple paragraphs of your reply I can agree with mostly. (Pharisees made it possible ) He came for "the lost sheep of Israel first". In his reported words.

Actually even that wouldn't have been possible if all of this was "God's Plan".

God's "PLAN" can never be anyone's choice but God's.

Therefore if it was God's plan to have the Pharisees call for the crucifixion of Christ, then they too could have no choice in the matter. For if they chose not to, then "God's Plan" would have failed. And we can't have a God failing at anything.

So actually there's no point in thanking the Pharisees since they could not have had a choice in the matter either.

~~~~~~~~

There are far more problems with this than we see at first glance as well.

Not only would the entire Jesus story need to be something that God had planned out in its entirety with no chance of failing, but this also flies in the face of previous Bible stories.

For example, if the only possible way for humans to be saved is to have them brutally crucify Jesus, then what was the Great Flood all about? Drowning humans out isn't going to help anything if the only thing that can save them is having them brutally crucify Jesus.

Not only this, but if this was "God's Plan" for the salvation of men from the beginning then God should have given Adam and Eve some spikes and a sledge and produced Jesus for them right there in the Garden of Eden. Then Adam and Eve could have chosen whether or not they wanted to nail Jesus to a pole or tree in order to save their own souls.

A lot of religious people don't like the way I talk about the Bible because I'm so blunt. But how could what I say be wrong? Especially if this is an "unchanging God" who doesn't change over time how he's going to deal with humans and salvation, etc.

Clearly this entire religious canon has some serious problems. The New Testament simply doesn't fit in with the Old Testament. It's a totally new and different story.

But this God isn't supposed to change. He's supposed to be dependable and not be changing his mind on how he's going to offer humans salvation at different points in history. In fact, if our creator changes his mind over time, then how could we be sure that he hasn't changed his mind since the time of Jesus?

Maybe God has a whole different outlook on life by now?

Who would know?

[brianbbs67]

I could say to that, that If one party did not do His will, He would find another. I agree that beyond the gospels , lots of contradictions are found. I am suspiciously optimistic of the New. But, I defer to God. As he was presented, earlier in time.

As to the Flood, It seems the purpose was to rid Earth of the Nephilim. Was that a reset? A do over? IDK.

I find no offense in bluntness. Shortens the conversation and gets to the point. As to God changing his mind, I see evidence of that in the OT. So, very possible.

Really, all scripture, even if said to be inspired, is subject to question. i accept it as I accept Christ and God. But, i also know it is oral tradition written down many years later by men. So, it is a guide, not an absolute.

[Divine Insight]

Really, all scripture, even if said to be inspired, is subject to question. i accept it as I accept Christ and God. But, i also know it is oral tradition written down many years later by men. So, it is a guide, not an absolute.

You've just brought up another one of my many reasons for rejecting the Bible as having supposedly come from a judgemental God.

You say it all right here:

"So, it is a guide, not an absolute."

In my humble, but obviously blunt, opinion this cannot work. It cannot merely be a guide and not be absolute.

Why? Because the stakes are too high. We're talking about being judged for all of eternity here. Our eternal fate is at stake. This is true whether we accept the concept of hell and everlasting punishment as Jesus taught, or even if we reject the notion of eternal punishment and consider failure to comply merely resulting in our eternal death.

The bottom line is that failure to get it right results in eternal condemnation, whether it's eternal torture or mere death. And the only way to qualify for eternal life is to get it right.

Therefore it makes no sense to expect the Bible to be a mere 'guide'. It necessarily must be "absolute" and without error, or even potential confusion.

Because of this, I actually support the views of Fundamental Christians who demand that the Bible must be inerrant if it is the word of a judgemental God where the eternal fate of our "souls" is at stake.

So I am in total agreement with Fundamental Christians who demand that the Bible cannot be errant, or even vague. It cannot be a mere "guide". It must be an absolute, clear, and unambiguous criteria for what is expected of us.

Of course, I disagree with the Fundamental Christians that the Bible is inerrant, or clear, or unambiguous about anything. I simply agree with them that IF it was the word of God (or directives from God) then it must be inerrant, crystal clear, and totally free from any ambiguity.

Since I hold that it is none of these things (and most Christians tend to agree), then it follows that it makes no sense that the Bible is the word or directives of any judgemental God.

So this is a second reason I reject the Bible.

Only a crystal clear totally inerrant and unambiguous Bible would do. And that's clearly not what we have here. So yet another reason the Bible cannot be from any God who is going to judge the eternal fate of our souls.

We can't be left having to guess whether or not we're getting it right. That cannot be made to work. So the Bible as a mere "guide" won't do. It would be far too easy for decent people to "fall through the cracks" of misunderstanding. And we can't have that in a system of "Perfect Justice".

There's simply no room for cracks in a system of perfect justice. A mere guide won't do. Only concise and non-ambiguous instructions will do. Otherwise it's an imperfect system and innocent people would fall through the cracks of ambiguity.

We can't have anyone "falling through cracks" in a system of "perfect justice". That just won't do.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by brianbbs67]

Is there a difference between choosing to always obey someone and having no free will?

[ttruscott]

Did Jesus/Yeshua/whateverhisname have free will. We see him quote" the son can only do as the father has instructed". Or was he so devoted to the father it never was an issue?

So, was he locked into the doctrine? Or could he act of his will? I can see examples of both. What do you all see?

One can be obedient to another by one's free will decision to do so, eh?

[JP Cusick]

Did Jesus/Yeshua/whateverhisname have free will. We see him quote" the son can only do as the father has instructed". Or was he so devoted to the father it never was an issue?

So, was he locked into the doctrine? Or could he act of his will? I can see examples of both. What do you all see?

The scriptures declare that Jesus was tempted, and to be tempted means He had the free will to do otherwise.

Hebrews 2:
18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

The trick or trap is only that Jesus knew that in order to be the Savior and to be the Messiah then He had to stick to the plan and follow through to its end - and that is not just free will because that is will power.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by brianbbs67]

Is there a difference between choosing to always obey someone and having no free will?

There is when what we are talking about is a plan made by a God who cannot fail.

If the choice to disobey results in God having failed in his plan, and God can never fail at anything he sets out to do, then there cannot be the possibility of making a choice to do anything that would cause the plan to fail.

Christians seem to be unable to understand the problem here.

In Christianity it could not be possible for Jesus to have failed to do precisely as God had planned. For if he had, then God's plan would have failed. And we can't have an omnipotent omniscient God failing at his plans.

So the argument that Jesus was choosing to always obey via a free will choice when he could have made other choices fails. Jesus could not possibly have chosen to fail at what this God had expected would be the outcome.

In short, you can't have a God who sends his only begotten virgin-born Son into the world to be the savior of humanity and have Jesus fail. Because this would then result in this God being unable to have implemented the very plan that he expected when he created Jesus through the virgin Mary.

So there could not be an option for Jesus to have failed or for this entire scenario to have played out in any way other than what it did.

Christians seem to fail to realize that normal arguments for mortal humans cannot be applied to Jesus here.

And Christians who believe in the "Trinity" or that Jesus was an incarnation of God or the Holy Spirit in any way, cannot possibly argue that Jesus could have potentially failed. That would require that God himself fails.

But even if we view Jesus as being separate from God in some way, Jesus still couldn't have failed since his failure would necessarily result in God's plan failing.

So the story cannot possibly be true.

There's just no way of getting around this. This is a major flaw in this religious paradigm. It basically proves that it cannot be anything other than a very poorly-thought-out man-made superstitious tale.

It's a dead give-a-way of the fallacy of this religion.