Belief a Conscious Choice?

[Studyman]

I was th author of that Santa OP. I am glad you resurrected it. Humans cannot choose many things. For instance, we can't choose to start liking a food we detest. We can't choose to have positive feelings for a person whom we hate. We can't choose to believe what is unbelievable to us. Yes, we can pretend but as I indicated in the Santa OP we cannot choose to regress and believe in Santa again.

Here are a few bibe facts that are germane.

1. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. John 15:16
2. And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; Acts 22:14
3. And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; Romans 12:3

It appears that the belief of faith is a gift given rather than something we conjure up in our hearts. As Jesus said to Peter, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.

I understand that Calvin came to the same conclusion.

But the question I have is "Didn't God Create Time"? And doing so, does HE not also know the end from the beginning? So when God tells me in His Word.

"19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that "I have set before you life and death", blessing and cursing: "therefore choose life
, that both thou and thy seed may live:

He already knows the choice I will make. I don't, but HE Does. So if I "choose" Life, I shall live, if I "choose" death, I shall die.

Since HE already knows my choice, it is not on my terms, but HIS. Man can't go around telling God, "I choose you so I'm yours, give me life"!

The Calvin doctrine teaches that God chooses us according to some invisible Holy Lottery. That there is really no choice at all. God picks winners and losers regardless of His Statements to the Contrary in scriptures.

I'm not sure about his doctrine.

I think Hebrews tells it best.

Heb. 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

14 For we are made partakers of Christ,******** "if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;"

15 While it is said, "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts", as in the provocation.

Certainly worth the discussion. Great post, good topic.

 

[Grace Accepted]

I understand that Calvin came to the same conclusion.

But the question I have is "Didn't God Create Time"? And doing so, does HE not also know the end from the beginning? So when God tells me in His Word.

"19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that "I have set before you life and death", blessing and cursing: "therefore choose life
, that both thou and thy seed may live:

He already knows the choice I will make. I don't, but HE Does. So if I "choose" Life, I shall live, if I "choose" death, I shall die.

Since HE already knows my choice, it is not on my terms, but HIS. Man can't go around telling God, "I choose you so I'm yours, give me life"!

The Calvin doctrine teaches that God chooses us according to some invisible Holy Lottery. That there is really no choice at all. God picks winners and losers regardless of His Statements to the Contrary in scriptures.

I'm not sure about his doctrine.

I think Hebrews tells it best.

Heb. 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

14 For we are made partakers of Christ,******** "if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;"

15 While it is said, "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts", as in the provocation.

Certainly worth the discussion. Great post, good topic.

Calvin really has nothing to do with what is true or what isn't. If you follow a man, you are going to end up in the wrong place. So Calvin aside. What does the Bible reveal?

Faith is given to each man by God. Romans 12:3, Cor 12:9 As with any gift we can accept it or reject it. In this sense, we can choose to accept His gift of belief or reject it, but ultimately belief is a gift.

Hebrews 13 is not an exhortation to believe, it is a warning to not reject the gift of belief you already have. It is a warning to NOT turn away.. The audience for this passage was believers not unbelievers.

 

[Arial]

Calvin really has nothing to do with what is true or what isn't. If you follow a man, you are going to end up in the wrong place. So Calvin aside. What does the Bible reveal?

Faith is given to each man by God. Romans 12:3, Cor 12:9 As with any gift we can accept it or reject it. In this sense, we can choose to accept His gift of belief or reject it, but ultimately belief is a gift.

Hebrews 13 is not an exhortation to believe, it is a warning to not reject the gift of belief you already have. It is a warning to NOT turn away.. The audience for this passage was believers not unbelievers.

Respectfully, in regards to your comment about Calvin (or any man or men); Though if we blindly follow any men or teaching of men, we do so at our own peril, that does not mean that everything men teach is not true. The peril is not so much that we may be believing something that is or isn't true, it is in not having seen it for ourselves in the word of God. It is not seated in our own understanding. Everything should be checked against scripture, for ourselves, and with the light of the Holy Spirit shining upon it. But God does raise up men in our time of need, and that need was great before and during the reformation as His word had been cloaked in darkness and kept from the people. It was necessary for His church and His people alike. That said, it also does not mean that they were infallible or that everything they said and taught is automatically correct.

Back to the subject of choosing to believe. . God truly does work in mysterious ways. Mysterious because He operates within us and our lives in ways that are as individually oriented as each of us is individual. His interaction with is intensely personal. One of the results of this is that it looks to us as though we believe the gospel because of choices we make, and that we make this choice by some sort of evidence. PJ gave an account of how it came about with him, as a toddler, for example, which involved his simply believing and being unable to not believe. In my case evidence was presented of the possibility that the Bible may be true, that is prophecies in the OT that came "true" in the OT, exactly as they were prophesied, even so far as names of people not yet born were given. (The Late Great Planet Earth, which I read in the eighties.) This did not make me believe the gospel, though I had heard it non stop from my brother for seven years. It merely gave me pause, and I must say it also sent a bolt of the fear of God, and not in a good way, through me. The "invitation to invite Jesus into my life" was given, and as everything I had that my brother gave me to read said doing this was the way to make it happen, I said to myself "just in case." That did not cause me believe either. Though I felt safe and no longer afraid. It was in the night, while I was sleeping that something changed. I woke up full of joy, knowing that every word in the Bible was true, and began to read them.

My point here is, even before we do believe, it is God working in us and on us, in whatever way we need or He chooses for His own good purposes, softening the hard heart, opening our ears to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, and follow Him.

P.S When the Late Great Planet Earth first came out in the seventies, my husband and I had a good friend we referred to as Crazy John. He read the book and was carrying on and on about it, but what he got out of it was some truly crazy idea that it was talking about aliens from outer space. so I never bothered to read it then, was laughing inside myself when my brother handed it to me. So we can see that it is not the words or the book that changes a person or gives the understanding, it has to be God.

 

[Mr E]

I was th author of that Santa OP. I am glad you resurrected it. Humans cannot choose many things. For instance, we can't choose to start liking a food we detest. We can't choose to have positive feelings for a person whom we hate. We can't choose to believe what is unbelievable to us. Yes, we can pretend but as I indicated in the Santa OP we cannot choose to regress and believe in Santa again.

I used to hate brussel sprouts. Now I love brussel sprouts. For many years I detested sushi, then after a period of time I chose to try it again and acquired a fondness for it, now I choose to eat it rarely. We can and do "choose" to do, or like, or love differently at different times. It's not pretending. It's not that I didn't really hate brussel sprouts... I did. Then I matured and my choices changed.

 

[Studyman]

Calvin really has nothing to do with what is true or what isn't. If you follow a man, you are going to end up in the wrong place. So Calvin aside. What does the Bible reveal?

Faith is given to each man by God. Romans 12:3, Cor 12:9 As with any gift we can accept it or reject it. In this sense, we can choose to accept His gift of belief or reject it, but ultimately belief is a gift.

Hebrews 13 is not an exhortation to believe, it is a warning to not reject the gift of belief you already have. It is a warning to NOT turn away.. The audience for this passage was believers not unbelievers.

Well then we are in agreement with Duet 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that "I have set before you life (Belief) and death (Unbelief)", blessing (Belief) and cursing (Unbelief):" "therefore choose life, (Belief) that both thou and thy seed may live:

I never really looked at it like that before.

 

[Grace Accepted]

I used to hate brussel sprouts. Now I love brussel sprouts. For many years I detested sushi, then after a period of time I chose to try it again and acquired a fondness for it, now I choose to eat it rarely. We can and do "choose" to do, or like, or love differently at different times. It's not pretending. It's not that I didn't really hate brussel sprouts... I did. Then I matured and my choices changed.

Changing tastes is not the same as choosing to change tastes. As a kid I liked raw macaroni.

 

[Grace Accepted]

Well then we are in agreement with Duet 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that "I have set before you life (Belief) and death (Unbelief)", blessing (Belief) and cursing (Unbelief):" "therefore choose life, (Belief) that both thou and thy seed may live:

I never really looked at it like that before.

Another aspect is that we cannot choose something that does not exist. If we do not believe it would be silly for us to consider it a choice.
In essence God gives us belief and we can chose to not believe.

 

[Mr E]

Changing tastes is not the same as choosing to change tastes. As a kid I liked raw macaroni.

You said, and I quoted... of humans- “we cannot choose to start liking a food we detest.” That’s patently (provably) false. It was your example, not mine.

 

[Studyman]

Another aspect is that we cannot choose something that does not exist. If we do not believe it would be silly for us to consider it a choice.
In essence God gives us belief and we can chose to not believe.

Interesting. Eve had belief as well. It's just that she "believed" in the wrong voice. So indeed, it seems God gives human the gift of believing. Where we place this belief, seems to be the choice HE gives us.

Interesting perspective.

 

[Mr E]

Interesting. Eve had belief as well. It's just that she "believed" in the wrong voice. So indeed, it seems God gives human the gift of believing. Where we place this belief, seems to be the choice HE gives us.

Interesting perspective.

It’s interesting to consider that the gift is the choice itself. The gift is the ability to choose and if we cannot choose something that doesn’t exist, we must choose between those things that do exist. In a way, good and evil are at the most basic level, the ultimate choice. It isn’t that evil doesn’t exist- it does. We see it manifest in the world. Yet we say God is good and He is. He chooses not to be evil.

 

[Studyman]

It’s interesting to consider that the gift is the choice itself. The gift is the ability to choose and if we cannot choose something that doesn’t exist, we must choose between those things that do exist. In a way, good and evil are at the most basic level, the ultimate choice. It isn’t that evil doesn’t exist- it does. We see it manifest in the world. Yet we say God is good and He is. He chooses not to be evil.

Agreed. "Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus".

We, that is, a small study group I gather with once a week, were speaking to this very thing last Saturday. God has said He created Good and He creates evil. We were pondering how God, who is righteousness, could create evil. We came to the conclusion you implied here. That the Choice itself is good.

But when God creates instruction, like " don't eat this", the creation of good and evil are automatically there. The Choice between good and evil exists in the command itself. If we "don't Eat" this is good, if we rebel against the command, and "eat" this is evil.

The verse that came into my mind is this;

2 Cor. 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Great topic.

 

[Arial]

Well then we are in agreement with Duet 30:19 "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that "I have set before you life (Belief) and death (Unbelief)", blessing (Belief) and cursing (Unbelief):" "therefore choose life, (Belief) that both thou and thy seed may live:

I never really looked at it like that before.

It is my understanding that the choice was life ( for obedience, and that obedience clearly defined) or death ( for disobedience). Blessing (for obedience) curses (for disobedience).