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lsend...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Gary McNees wrote:
>
> >
> > > If you insist that this is "free will", fine; just so we
> > > know what we're talking about. As Henry Ford said about
> > > his Model T "You can have any color you want, as long as
> > > it's black."
> >
> > I mean by free will that my choices are self-determined.
> > I mean that I can choose between alternatives.
> >
> ONLY after being regenerated. Again, Rom 3:10. In fact, Rom 1 & 2.
> Man is dead. "In Adam ALL died." "All have sinned."

Not to worry about that. Add this: 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in
Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Problem
solved!

> Once fallen,
> man never had the option within him to convert his love of self into
> love for God. Fallen man has but one orientation. Choice is always
> between that which has but a single goal. When we speak of the
> "freedom of the will" it speaks of a self-determination to a single
> end, not a choice between two opposite or alternative ends. The
> initial or basic activity is alway rooted in and a causation of the
> inclination, bias, tendency of the will.
>
> The Augustinian school asserts that the will is never *un*inclined or
> indifferent. There is no voilition prior to inclination.
>
> To see this operable, one need only turn to the sanctification of the
> believer. Sanctification maybe defined as the increase of
holiness.
> This increase is based upon the believers increase in selflessness by
> the increase in derivation, NOT by original production. No Christian
> augments his own holiness by his own isolated decision. The law of
> sanctification is stated in Jn 15:4, "Abide in Me and I in you: as
the
> branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no
more
> can you except you abide in me." The branch bears fruit
spontaneously.
> The grape is a vital, not a mechanical product. But this
spontaneity
> is possible to the branch ONLY as it derives its substance from the
> Vine. Similarly, sanctification is spontaneous and free, yet only as
> it is derived from Christ the source of holiness. (also see 2 Cor
> 9