Are We Not Allowed To Use Our Freewill?

Another comment from azsuperman:

Tough Questions for Christians- Freewill

AZ asks: "If we use our freewill, it can only be as robots. If we actually use it freely, we will burn in hell forever. Is this actually free?"

AZ has the same problem as many children-- he can only see the little that is not allowed rather than the huge variety that is.

Even if we follow the law, which is considered restrictive by many, it has 618 laws. Jesus whittled down all the laws to simply two-- Love God and love your neighbor. But we make thousands of choices a day. For every choice we have, there are many different options, only some of them are actually sin.

It actually reminds me of Adam and Eve. Many people consider them to have been tricked by God because the tree He didn't want them to eat was right in the middle of the garden, and thus tempting. That might be a possibility, but they are ignoring the opportunities they had. If the rivers are correct, the garden was literally millions of acres, filled with trees. So there were countless trees and God only asked them not to eat one.

This is the fact of freewill-- God gives us the right to rule the earth. And we've been doing that. Sometimes we've done alright. Other times we've done very poorly. But it is an optical illusion to think that all the choices we really have are sinful ones. There is the occasional moral dilemma, but most of the time we are just living life. And we have the choice to live it as we please.

Some may say, "But if we sin once, God will send us to hell eternally." That doesn't seem accurate with Scripture, but let's say that it's true. God also gave us the choice to escape hell eternally by being in His kingdom. All we have to do is follow Jesus and participate in the discipline of repenting of our sin. That's pretty simple, really.

One last item. AZ is comparing hell with death. It's not exactly the same. God gives us our freedom, almost without restriction, throughout our life. Yes, after our life there is a judgment, but this is not the same as saying, "Spend one dollar and I will kill you." God is not telling us not to "spend" our freewill-- He is restricting our choices slightly for the good of all. And God is not killing us the instant we use our freewill-- we have sixty to eighty years to act as we choose. And how we choose to act is the basis for our eternity.

Not like robots at all.