Note: This article was written before the author’s conversion to Orthodoxy.
I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.
Any Arminians out there want to defend how the Scripture supposedly teaches autonomous free will in light of this Scripture? At best, they can argue what John Cassian did in Conference 13 that God obviously can change the volition of some people, He just does not do it to everyone. He understood that autonomous free will is impossible to argue from the Scriptures.
Orthodox Christian Theology 
Jeremiah is simply acknowledging that if he tries to be Lord over his own life, things will not go well. It’s not for man to direct his steps-why? Because when he does, disaster results. In the next verse he asks God to correct him. Why would God ever have to correct anyone if no one has free will in the first place? They would already all be doing exactly what God wants them to do. He asks God to pour out his wrath on the nations in verse 25, why? Because the nations are mis using their free will to rebel against God.
Jeremiah 11:7
‘For I solemnly warned your fathers in the day that I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this day, warning persistently, saying, “Listen to My voice.” 8Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked, each one, in the stubbornness of his evil heart; therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.’
Far from proving that God has everyone marching in lockstep to his will, Jeremiah shows us that men constantly rebeling against God. Why? Because they can. God has not made us robots.
It takes a lot of explaining away of verses like these, and others like it such as “The plans of the heart belong to man,
But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord” (Prov 16:1).
You are forced to reinterpret these verses and explain away their plain meaning. Yet, what I don’t find, are verses such as, “I cannot help these people,” “These people cannot be converted,” “I, Jehovah, would fix everything if only these men did not have autonomous free will!”
Do you have any verses that actually, at least on the surface, state what you say? Of course my point here is not to prove a whole doctrine on a single verse. My point is to show that the doctrine explains why the Bible can have these verses which would be out of place and irrelevant if Arminianism was true.
Find the verse that destroys Calvinism. 🙂 Good luck!
I haven’t explained anything away, I have simply read the verse in it’s natural context, as a prayer, where the prophet is asking God for guidance.
I have already listed verses clearly stating that people are capable of defying and disobeying God. That’s what chapter 11 is all about. Not one verse. And the Bible is full of chapters like this. Pulling out one verse is silly. You can pull a verse here and there out of Scripture and make the Word say anything.
God decrees punishment precisely because His people are defying his will. You would have God playing games with His people by causing their sin, then punishing them for it. This is the absurdity of Calvinism.
If you think Arminism has God wringing his hands and saying: ” I can’t possibly bring my plan for the world to pass, because of man’s freewill”, then you have a seriously flawed view of arminianism. The God who allows freewill is not less sovereign or less powerful, He is more powerful because he does not have to bring His plans about by making man mere puppets.
I find the Calvinists constantly pull one verse out of context and try to use it to prove their point. You really want to go with a proverb? A proverb is not a definitive statement.
Again, you simply show that you do not have a Biblical argument for your contention. I have a whole section on this website devoted to Calvinism that argues beyond one or two verses. I’m just pulling one liners here for fun, because the Arminian cannot even do that because nothing in the Bible remotely comes close to proving their contention. Because of this, they have to infer their contentions from verses that are not directly addressing the issue.
Well, one of my favorites is Jeremiah 18:5-10, because it means the exact opposite of what Calvinists take it to mean when referenced in Romans 9.
“8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”
I don’t know how any verses could be any clearer that God is not running a deterministic universe, or that people have authentic freewill. The only way you can read the Word like a Calvinist is to say that God does not really mean what he says in verses like this.
“I don’t know how any verses could be any clearer that God is not running a deterministic universe, or that people have authentic freewill.”
Clearly this is an inference you draw. It surely does not explicitly say anything of the sort. It essentially says, “If you repent, then I won’t punish you. If you don’t repent, I will punish you.” It obviously refers God’s justice, it is not a commentary on the will, synergism vs monergism, or anything of the sort. Do you have a verse that actually says that man has autonomous free will, because I can keep pulling out verses that show that God does indeed affect the beliefs of man.
Just as the verses you post do not explicitly say that God does not allow men to think for themselves.
It doesn’t matter what verse I post, because you will look at all of them through Calvinist lenses and insist they don’t mean what they clearly state.
Ezekiel 18:30-32
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
I pray you may someday know the freedom of taking God at his word. I’m done here. 🙂
“Just as the verses you post do not explicitly say that God does not allow men to think for themselves.”
That is not the Calvinist position. I just quoted, “The thoughts belong to man, but the answer of the tongue belongs to the Lord” means that men have free will, but God can work with the free will of man and change the inclinations of the man’s heart.
The verse you quote speak of God asking us to repent. Again, where do you get the inference that just because God asks for our repentance, that we can repent without the help of God?
No one is claiming that we can repent without God’s HELP. But God does not irresistibly cause us to repent, else He would have no need to ask for it. The verse says: “Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” The reformed interpretation would be ” I will make you a new heart and a new spirit without you asking for it, because you are not even capable of asking.” Of course, it’s God who changes the inclinations of man’s heart, but only when men humble themselves enough to ask. Arminius was reformed through and through, but he came to understand that God forcing salvation on man destroys any concept of God being just.
“No one is claiming that we can repent without God’s HELP. But God does not irresistibly cause us to repent, else He would have no need to ask for it.”
Why cannot God ask you to do something, but also be the operating force behind it? Does the Bible say this is not so?
You think it does, but it actually doesn’t. You are making an inference based upon an extrabiblical presupposition: that God cannot ask from something that he will not do Himself.
Of course, commonsense shows this to be false. Many a mother asks a child to make the bed, the kid doesn’t, and then the mother makes the bed for the child.
But let’s go beyond simple examples. Can we actually find examples of God causing people to repent?
Well, we have Is 29:18 speaks of the men in verses 10 to 12 being made to see and hear, and God says “those who criticize will accept instruction (Is 29:14).
Then we have plain statements of the Bible: “perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 2:25). How can God grant something which isn’t His to grant?
Did Paul one His way to Damascus want to repent? No. Yet, God set Him apart from the womb and made him repent!
“The verse says: “Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” The reformed interpretation would be ” I will make you a new heart and a new spirit without you asking for it, because you are not even capable of asking.””
Um, isn’t that what God says in Ezek 36…And I don’t remember the Israelites in that passage asking for it. I can actually find parts of the Bible that have my presuppositions explicitly stated!
“Of course, it’s God who changes the inclinations of man’s heart, but only when men humble themselves enough to ask.”
Paul didn’t ask and God changed the inclinations of is heart anyway.
“Through You ALONE we confess Your name” (Is 26:13).
So, if it is “alone” that means that man does not have a significant role. After all, even kings are like channels of water in the hand of God.
You are reading your own pre-suppositions into these passages. For example, in Timothy, you assume that God’s bringing of repentance is irresistible. In context, this is not likely meaning repentance to salvation, but that to a fuller understanding of truth. The fact that someone has to instruct them is ample evidence that God just does not hit them with a magic wand and make them see.
THere’s much more to my reply you ignored. However, there are parts of the Scripture that explicitly state where I am coming from, even though you choose to interpret it differently. Yet, you do not have a single verse that explicitly states your position, which is quite telling. All you have are inferences and implicit interpretations. I actually can point to explicit passages that align with my presuppositions, which i think makes them much more likely to be true.
Lol, ” mother asks a child to make the bed, the kid doesn’t, and then the mother makes the bed for the child.”
Um, that’s called disobedience. And proves my point that like children, we have free will to do the opposite of what God asks.
But GOd can still make the bed regardless of our defiance, you miss the point.
Do you really believe that what God is saying In Ezek 36, is that he will force every Israelite to have a new heart? Is that what we see happening? No, we are told that Abraham and other saints in the O.T were justified through faith. Not on an arbitrary basis, but only because of their faith.
It explicitly says God will cause them to walk in His ways. Are you saying that it does not say that?
Acts 7:51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
Hebrew 3:7-8 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
As for Paul, a dramatic conversion does not equal God coercing someone to be saved in an irresistible manner.
God is making promises to his people in Ezekiel. These promises do not cancel out their individual free choices. Has every Jewish person been sanctified?
It is the presupposition of Calvinism that leads them to not see contra casual choices in the Bible. As an Arminian I see people making choices all in the Bible and even God Himself commanding people to do this or that. This would be impossible apart from the ability to chose. I don’t prefer “free will” as God alone has true free will to do whatever He wills to do though He cannot violate His holiness.
Just my friendly two cents worth.