Sketo
Well-known member
Natural mans sin nature can be compared to a rocks intrinsic weight...
A rock naturally falls downward due to its intrinsic weight and the gravity of the world. If you put rock in your hand, and close your fingers around it, you can force rock to go in any direction you want it to! No other direction is available due to your fingers closed around it. This is not freedom!
If you open your fist, so that your hand is now flat and rock is laying on your palm, then you have made the up direction freely available but this does not mean rock has the ability to go up! It just means that rock has the freely available option to go up, if it ever so desires! a.k.a. “Free Choice”! This is a kind of extrinsic freedom, but availability does not equate to ability!
Now if your hand moves up then rock is forced (i.e. Grace) to go up, but if you move your hand down then rock goes down... but is not forced by hand. This is due to rocks natural bent towards the downward direction. The hand is not forcing the downward movement of rock... it’s allowing rock to do what rock naturally does when given freedom of any direction!
Keep in mind that rock is always pushing against hand and at any point hand can turn over and give rock over to the full effects of its own weight allowing rock complete freedom to fall as far as it wants. The only reason rock is not at its lowest point is due to the hand preventing it!
If it wasn’t for hand then rock would be on the ground!
Determinism is the hand determining the height of the rock... and Determinism can be found in both “open” and “closed” hand scenarios, BUT “freedom” is only found in the “open hand” scenario!
The “closed hand” scenario only contains “determinism” without “freedom”... BUT...
The “open hand” scenario contains both “determinism” and “freedom”!
Many try to misrepresent Calvinism, and create a straw-man, by portraying Determinism as only the “closed” hand scenario... when the Determinism, of Calvinism, is actually the “open” hand scenario!
Click for A Practical Understanding of Calvinistic Determinism
Libertarian Freewillism, on the other hand, says that rock can not be considered “truly free” unless Hand, Gravity, Weight and any other possible cause of direction is removed from the scenario... but this would create a “free-floating-neutral” rock... and if rock does move, in any direction, then the “cause” of the movement must remain a vague mystery!
Think about it... If the movement, in any direction, is explained by ANYTHING, other than a vague mystery, then it violates the very core meaning of Libertarianism! If there is any cause of movement that prevents rocks movement in another direction, like hand, gravity, weight, etc., then it is not allowed in the scenario otherwise you lose “libertarian freedom”! This is philosophical... not biblical!
The Bible never describes man in a “free-floating-neutral” sense!
Click for A Practical Understanding of Libertarian Freewillism
A rock naturally falls downward due to its intrinsic weight and the gravity of the world. If you put rock in your hand, and close your fingers around it, you can force rock to go in any direction you want it to! No other direction is available due to your fingers closed around it. This is not freedom!
If you open your fist, so that your hand is now flat and rock is laying on your palm, then you have made the up direction freely available but this does not mean rock has the ability to go up! It just means that rock has the freely available option to go up, if it ever so desires! a.k.a. “Free Choice”! This is a kind of extrinsic freedom, but availability does not equate to ability!
Now if your hand moves up then rock is forced (i.e. Grace) to go up, but if you move your hand down then rock goes down... but is not forced by hand. This is due to rocks natural bent towards the downward direction. The hand is not forcing the downward movement of rock... it’s allowing rock to do what rock naturally does when given freedom of any direction!
Keep in mind that rock is always pushing against hand and at any point hand can turn over and give rock over to the full effects of its own weight allowing rock complete freedom to fall as far as it wants. The only reason rock is not at its lowest point is due to the hand preventing it!
If it wasn’t for hand then rock would be on the ground!
Determinism is the hand determining the height of the rock... and Determinism can be found in both “open” and “closed” hand scenarios, BUT “freedom” is only found in the “open hand” scenario!
The “closed hand” scenario only contains “determinism” without “freedom”... BUT...
The “open hand” scenario contains both “determinism” and “freedom”!
Many try to misrepresent Calvinism, and create a straw-man, by portraying Determinism as only the “closed” hand scenario... when the Determinism, of Calvinism, is actually the “open” hand scenario!
Click for A Practical Understanding of Calvinistic Determinism
Libertarian Freewillism, on the other hand, says that rock can not be considered “truly free” unless Hand, Gravity, Weight and any other possible cause of direction is removed from the scenario... but this would create a “free-floating-neutral” rock... and if rock does move, in any direction, then the “cause” of the movement must remain a vague mystery!
Think about it... If the movement, in any direction, is explained by ANYTHING, other than a vague mystery, then it violates the very core meaning of Libertarianism! If there is any cause of movement that prevents rocks movement in another direction, like hand, gravity, weight, etc., then it is not allowed in the scenario otherwise you lose “libertarian freedom”! This is philosophical... not biblical!
The Bible never describes man in a “free-floating-neutral” sense!
Click for A Practical Understanding of Libertarian Freewillism
The reason why Calvinists reject this “Libertarian Freewillism” is because the kind of “neutral” freedom it demands is not supported by the Bible... ANYWHERE!
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