The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Is man required to "choose" in order to be saved?

I disagree that man is not "free" to choose according to his nature, which is the established definition of "free agency". It is not "either/or" but BOTH that man is a free agent AND God has decreed everything without exception from eternity. This is what all the Reformed Confessions teach, but more importantly, this is what Scripture teaches, which the Confessions affirm. God decreed the fall of Adam, but both Adam and Eve made their respective choices of disobedience most freely. Of course, the caveat in this example and even more so with Satan, is that there was no prior predisposition to evil as there is with fallen mankind. And anyone who tries to offer an explanation as to how either Satan or the first parents sinned is guilty of sheer unwarranted speculation. Even Jonathan Edwards admitted that there is no answer to be found to that question. Why? Because it is not revealed.

However, what IS revealed is that men are free to choose and do choose that which is most important to them in all situations. But those choices are restricted according to their nature. Any and all sins which I commit have been foreordained by God according to His eternal counsel and good pleasure for His glory. But God's decree in no sense is the ultimate cause of my sinning, else would be guilty of being the Author of Sin, which all but a few individuals throughout history, even the staunchest supralapsarians, have categorically denied. Man is totally responsible for all his choices, AND all man's choices are made freely, AND all man's choices have been foreordained/decreed by God from eternity.