Source: Based on part of Is God Free?
…regarding “Freedom”
Is it possible for God to be free if He is perfect in everything he does (Genesis 1:21) and He is perfect (1 Peter 1:16)! Thomas Aquinas, an Italian Catholic Philosopher of 1225 to 1274 A.D., argued that the mind of God is immutable (it doesn’t change). If He is perfect and He does what is perfect and He is Omnipotent (all powerful: Ephesians 1:19, 20), Omnipresent (everywhere: Psalm 139:2-12), and Omniscient (knows everything: 1 John 3:20), so then why would he be free?
Defining “free”. The word means: “unobstructed, not restrained, not controlled by obligation or will of another, not bound or attached.” (1) So using this definition we see what God is:
- Unobstructed;
- Not restrained;
- Not controlled by obligation or by the will of another (like the angels or man, even though the roles of the three persons of the Trinity are clearly defined in what they do);
- Not bound except by what He is (His nature) but what He does has no boundaries; and
- Not attached to anything. “He is” –past, present and future (Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 43:13; Deuteronomy 33:27; Isaiah 44:24; Acts 17:25; Exodus 3:14; John 5:26; 8:58).
The freedom of man
- John 8:32 – “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
- John 14:6 – “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
- John 8:36 – “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
- Romans 6:22 – “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”
- Romans 8:2 – “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
- Galatians 5:1 – “Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
- Romans 6:7 – “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” (2)
Jesus, who is God (John 8:58), said that he can make man free (John 8:32, 36). And by making man free, man is free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:32). Sin and death control man. Man will sin, for he was born in sin (Psalm 51:5), he inherited sin (Genesis 3:1-19), he serves sin (John 8:34) and he will die in his sin (Romans 5:12; 6:23; Galatians 6:8). So if God is free, then man can be free as well if he chooses to believe in Christ.
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