Greetings, I just wanted to throw out this poll to the folks here and see what you believe about freewill and Christ's gift of salvation.

PS. Just to clarify NO FREEWILL is the same as predestination, for the purpose of this poll.

Thanks!

Is there a vote for both freewill and no freewill? As in God elects some and lets others choose?

Put it this way, Brian. Do you believe you choose God or God choose you?

If you believe you choose God then put yourself down for freewill

As for me I believe God choose me, so I would go down as no freewill

fair enough

Okay, so this is a personal thing. Cool, gotcha.

I believe God invites us to partake of Christ. He then allows us to choose to partake or not. However, no one will be able to partake without His initial call to do so. We are responsible to God to answer the call. He's the one that draws us to start with. He called and invited Israel who rejected His call just as Vashti rejected King Ahasuerus' call. He gave the Queen title to Esther in stead. Vashti was held responsible.

I believe that God seeks a relationship with sinners but when Christ comes knocking on the doors of our hearts, it's our choice whether to answer that call or not. It brings no glory to God it we are puppets controlled by a creator.

":....Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved....."
Acts 16: 30-31

"For whomever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Romans 10:13

Free will is the dignity that God gives us, how could we love Him unless it was based on free will? I could not believe in a God that did not honor my free will to love Him and accept His love.

Caneman

LOVE is patient LOVE is kind, you know the rest...I guess that is enforced by GOD too with no choice

God has elect few, and they will bare fruit and be saved and be conformed into the image of Christ because He has formed them as vessels for that purpose and they cannot help but fulfill His plan for them, although no one knows who these people are we are to walk in faith that we are elect and our fruit will show it to be true or false.

God also calls many but not all and these people become saved initially but many or most of them will fall away for various reasons, ( trials persecutions love of the world etc). These are like judas was and like the israelites in the wildnerness escpaed from the world baptised in water and spirit killed the old man in baptism(red sea) but they walk in unbelief with a wicked heart the rest of their life and die there without getting the promised land and because they have not born fruit they are cut off ( john 15)

we stand by faith or get cut off as no fruit comes from dead faith. Those who fall away do so becuase God has purpose for them, many of them are those in the body of christ who persecute and betray( like judas and the pharasees etc). God uses them to bring His elect to their cross daily and sometimes physically.

No one can seek God, all men are dead in sins and have no " choice" to seek after him. the nature of man is totally at odds with Gods holiness. God must draw us, grant us repentance, give us mercy and grace and faith to be saved.

There are the elect and there are the reprobate. You do not "choose" God, He chooses you.

Man's sense of moral responsibility and dependence, and his instinctive appeal to God in times of danger, show how universal and innate is the conviction that God does govern the world and all human events. But while the Bible repeatedly teaches that this providential control is universal, Powerful, wise, and holy, it nowhere attempts to inform us how it is to be reconciled with man's free agency. All that we need to know is that God does govern His creatures and that His control over them is such that no violence is done to their natures. Perhaps the relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom can best be summed up in these words: God so presents the outside inducements that man acts in accordance with his own nature, yet does exactly what God has planned for him to do.

This is the view I subscribe to.

Don't remember where I got this, but I got it:

Human Freedom and the Sovereignty of God

Scripture surely teaches both human freedom and the sovereignty of God. However, it does not technically define what kind of human freedom or sovereignty is in view. For this, one’s biblical understanding is developed through a process of learning about ourselves and about God via his written Word (Romans 12:2), together with some philosophical discussion about the ways in which these subjects can be understood.

The labels indeterminism and determinism are often used in discussions about human freedom. From a theological perspective, Arminians and religious humanists believe in autonomous man and thus incorporate some form of indeterminism, while Calvinists and those who hold to sovereign grace hold to some form of determinism. In today’s modernistic society, indeterminists probably outnumber determinists by 1,000 to 1.

So what do these terms mean?

INDETERMINISM: This view claims that an individual’s acts are free only if that person could always have chosen to do otherwise. They typically deny that there is anything which causes a person to have to act in one way rather than another. Causal conditions (causes, forces, or influences) may push or incline the will, but the individual can always choose contrary to them. While choices are made for a reason, the indeterminist cannot provide a causal explanation why an individual would act according to one particular reason or another.

DETERMINISM: By contrast, the determinist claims that with every decision a person makes, there are causal conditions playing upon his or her will so as to incline it decisively and sufficiently in one direction rather than another. Given prevailing causal influences and without mitigating forces, it is impossible for an individual to choose otherwise.
However, keep in mind there is no such thing as the definition of indeterminism or the definition of determinism. There exist subtle differences amongst both groups. One form of determinism which appears consistent with Scripture and is best able to reconcile the truths of human freedom, responsibility, and the sovereignty of God is called compatibilism.

COMPATIBILISM is the presuppositional framework, held by many Bible-believing Christians, which asserts that mankind possess enough freedom of will (volition) to ensure responsibility, but not so much that we need to redefine or place limitations on God’s sovereignty. This position distinguishes two kinds of causes which influence and determine actions—constraining and nonconstraining. Constraining causes force an individual to act against his will.

Example 1: I order you to behave in a certain way and threaten you with physical harm if you don't comply.

By comparison, nonconstraining causes are sufficient to bring about a determined action, but they do not force persons to act against their will, desires or wishes.

Example 2: I encourage you to behave in the same way as in Example 1, but now present an irresistible argument that effectively connects with the source of your motivation. Your will and desire are brought into conformance with my will. Thus, under compatibilism the will is considered "free" since the forces are nonconstraining, but the will is still causally determined.

These concepts should immediately make sense to anyone who has raised children or have managed employees in the workplace.

What of Scriptural examples?

There are numerous verses from Genesis to Revelation that reflect compatibilism.

For example, Acts 2:23 reads:
"This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing Him to the cross."

And Peter and John's prayer to God in Acts 4:27, 28 is revealing:
"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 [Sovereign Father] anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen."

And further, in Acts 13:48, we read:
"...and all who were appointed for eternal life believed."

These verses clearly teach the compatibilist concept of determinism. Herod and Pilate were not forced into their evil conspiracy; rather their sinful dispositions and bent was allowed to run its course. The Father’s providential control of circumstances brought about His predestined event of the Son's death at Calvary. Further, it is not necessary for Herod or Pilate to have been able to choose contrary to be held responsible for there actions.

While this would appear to be the normal mode for God’s dealing with men, it does not preclude actions which mysteriously resemble constraining causes. The Acts 9 account of Saul’s conversion documents a supernatural change of mind and heart for the Jewish zealot. But did God’s intervention violate Saul’s so-call free-will decision to persecute the Church?