If Adventists understood by the term 'free will' what Ellen White says about our wills in this passage, our understanding would be correct. The passage is a wonderfully accurate statement of both the power and the limitations of the human will. The confusion in Adventist thinking is that the term 'free will' is often taken to mean that man can do good simply by deciding to do good. So, I'll modify my statement. There is no such thing as free will as that term is commonly understood. But yes, Ellen White herself used the term free will.

Don't most people understand "free will" to mean the power of choice? Isn't what you're really dealing with not free will, but rather the inability to do that which one chooses to do apart from God's power?

What Ellen White outlined is a different concept than what Luther taught. I'm a bit confused as to what you're really wanting to say, because Luther and Ellen White had very different ideas about free will, yet you are apparently agreeing with both.

Surely if we do not have free will to choose then God is not a fair God and the Devil has basically proved his point in accusing God of being unjust and His requirements being unreachable.

I agree, Debbie.

The confusion in Adventist thinking is that people think that they can do good simply by deciding to do good.

Is God in control?
God Bless,
Will

what is it that we really choose? humans make decisions that are in their self-interest more often than not. Additionally we choose to avoid pain and seek pleasure...

Think about how the first choice was set up. God said, eat from the tree you die.... when Eve was deceived into thinking that there was no death penalty she quickly decided to try the fruit and be like God... What if God had not attached a consequence to the choice? Something like, "I would prefer you all not to eat the fruit from that tree, okay?" Would the choice have been different?

The other question is this; why is it that the default position for humans with regards to choice is usually evil?

Will, interesting question! The idea that God is in control is vastly understood by many people, largely due, I think, to the influence of Augustine.

God is NOT in control in an Augustinian sense, which means that nothing happens which is not God's will. Many things happen which are not God's will, which is seen throughout the Scriptures, and is evident in our own lives, if we have an understanding of God's character.

In the Lord's prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." If God's will were already being done, we wouldn't need to pray His will to be done. Wars, famines, pestilence, crime, accidents, etc. all show that God's will is not being done.

So in the Augustinian way of thinking, we cannot say that God is in control.

However, if we look at Christ's life, we see that God *is* in control, and how He controls. He "controls" us, and things, just like Jesus Christ did, because when we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father.

How did Jesus Christ control things? When we answer that question, we will have the answer to the question as to how God controls things.

Stephen, I don't think looking at what God said to Eve as a death penalty attached to eating of the tree is the right way to consider things. This can make it look like an arbitrary penalty, as if under other circumstances it would be possible to sin without dying. But sin must lead to death. It's not possible for sin to not lead to death. So God warned Eve not to eat of the tree which was not hers to eat of, so that eating would be stealing, to avoid the result which would follow, which is death.

Actually it can be looked upon as a death penalty, as long as this is not seen as something which is arbitrarily imposed, but rather as the inevitable consequence. Here's a nice SOP quote which deals with the idea:

Christ never planted the seeds of death in the system. Satan planted these seeds when he tempted Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge which meant disobedience to God. Not one noxious plant was placed in the Lord's great garden, but after Adam and Eve sinned, poisonous herbs sprang up. In the parable of the sower the question was asked the master, "Didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?" The master answered, "An enemy hath done this" (Matt. 13:27, 28). All tares are sown by the evil one. Every noxious herb is of his sowing, and by his ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares.(2SM 288)

Quote:

---

what is it that we really choose? humans make decisions that are in their self-interest more often than not. Additionally we choose to avoid pain and seek pleasure...

---

Ever since Adam was created our choices have been chosing between Good and evil, whether we will follow God or not! Even if we don't see each choice in that light.

Quote:

---

Think about how the first choice was set up. God said, eat from the tree you die.... when Eve was deceived into thinking that there was no death penalty she quickly decided to try the fruit and be like God... What if God had not attached a consequence to the choice? Something like, "I would prefer you all not to eat the fruit from that tree, okay?" Would the choice have been different?

---

No the choice could not have been different because the serpents question would still have been phrased as Yea, hath God said?, and since it would still have been a choice whether or not to believe God and maintain their relationship with him, then the outcome may well have been different in that humans would be able to say God didn't warn our first parents of the consequences of their actions. Thereby leaving Adam and Eve an excuse!

Quote:

---

The other question is this; why is it that the default position for humans with regards to choice is usually evil?

---

When Adam sinned he lost his own relationship with God and also corrupted his own nature. When he had children after the fall all he could pass on naturewise was his own fallen nature, thereby ensuring that our nature, and thereby our choices, naturally tend to evil. However because we still have free will we can choose whether or not to follow our natural inclinations.