Do angels have free will?

[Christianna]

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Hi Strobe you mentioned:
 And the Lord said to satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person..Job 1:12

God  allowed Job to be attacked by satan. Only He said to satan  "in your power" and gave the boundaries.
 

[strobe]

Hi Strobe you mentioned:
 And the Lord said to satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person..Job 1:12

God  allowed Job to be attacked by satan. Only He said to satan  "in your power" and gave the boundaries.
 

Why do you think He didn't set such boundaries to prevent Adam and Eve falling in the first place? He knew that it would happen from the start and the world was created with that in mind. Everything is planned out from the beginning of time and so Satan and his angels must be an essential tool in that plan. I can't accept that God is taken by surprise, He is in control of everything and when it is all over we will have complete free will and be pure, justified and holy. I think I am giving away my view on the issue: angels only do the will of God, nothing more and nothing less, humanity will be in the image of God.

[Christianna]

Hi Strobe,

In reading the passage in genesis, God forewarned Adam and Eve. That to me is setting the boundaries but also giving them freewill. Genesis 2:16-17

Except they were tempted and deceived and it seems such a harsh judgement afterwards, for that.

Looking at it though, we can say it was the result of listening to a fallen angel, over God, and that was the consequence.

Only that Jesus took it upon Himself, and so that we can be rescued from the wages of sin, and so be given eternal life. Restoring everything back and perhaps even better.

I see where you are coming from and Judas Iscariot had his place to betray Jesus, in order for Him to be the Saviour.

Yet, also it said that it would have been better if Judas Iscariot was not born. Mark 14:21

If God used evil for good purposes, He still judges them for it,  which to me shows their free will .

And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Jude 1:6

Why would God judge people or angels if He controlled them. That would make Him an absolute tyrant. Yet He is not.

Just that creation is fallen, and in order to restore it, God had to use the complicated interaction between good and evil.
That is also primarily shown when Jesus was nailed to the cross, so that great wonderous good would come out of it.

 With the offer of redemption, salvation and eternal life, through the price Jesus paid on our behalf.
Also adding to creation the complete sacrificial love God gave  through Himself, for our benefit.

 As this demonstrates the love of God, which is even better  to know and experience ,than when creation was first formed and before it was fallen.

[Theo]

Why do you think He didn't set such boundaries to prevent Adam and Eve falling in the first place? He knew that it would happen from the start and the world was created with that in mind. Everything is planned out from the beginning of time and so Satan and his angels must be an essential tool in that plan. I can't accept that God is taken by surprise, He is in control of everything and when it is all over we will have complete free will and be pure, justified and holy. I think I am giving away my view on the issue: angels only do the will of God, nothing more and nothing less, humanity will be in the image of God.

Hi Strobe,
Yesterday, in brilliant sunshine, and without even a whisper of breeze, me and my dog wandered along a beautiful high heathland ridge, looking down on the lowland countryside stretching as far as the eye could see. Circling the sky above were a mixture of crows vying with various birds of prey and all around me nature testified to the greatness of its creator.
A month late perhaps, and at a different time of day, but my mind went back to the choral piece "All in an April evening ...... I thought on the Lamb of God".
But as is my wont the greatness of 'My God' as I wandered, stretched way back beyond the Mediterranean myths and legends of Genesis to the far eastern antipathy of Mount Ararat, where far earlier evidences exist of "the other sheep that were not of Christ's 'Mediterranean fold" that "also must be brought in".
All over this great universe of 'planet earth' its Creator God looks down on all of mankind's diversity of sincere attempts to 'create 'their God' in man's own likeness' and here we are doing likewise.
Two thousand or so years ago, I believe that God established a momentous fulcrum point in the midst of 'time' when he sent Christ to exemplify the reality of God by redressing the scales from 'Religion', in all its forms, to the conversity of 'Faith'.
But true 'Faith' is a stumbling block that must 'run' until it exhausts its course and every knee is finally brought to bow.

Please forgive me from hijacking your post to 'soapbox' what I call "The bigger picture".

[Christianna]

[quote author=strobe link=topic=10
If angels have free will, who's to say that after Jesus returns then the whole process won't start again and another one will rebel?

Hello,
Not everyone agrees with this but it does appear to occur in what we are  foretold, in the Bible, if I'm not mistaken. At the end of the millennium. That the rebellion reoccurs.

 I thought of that before and wouldn't it keep reoccurring. Just Jesus will triumph over death the last enemy.

I understand what you are saying and thought of it myself, that when all this occurs with Jesus triumphing over sin and death, it appears that it's not possible to rebel, because God made it so. That didn't occur at the beginning with the garden of Eden. What was the purpose and all that.

Only in keeping with the original discussion, it does seem to show that fallen angels as having free will within this and will be judged, and  in a condemning way.

[davetaff]

Hi
Do angels have free will if they don't it would mean God resides in a place where no one can love him is that possible for the God of love.
Angels obey God out of love freely given from the heart why did he put the tree of knowledge in the garden he answers this himself

. 
 22  And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever     

To be in the image of God man needs the knowledge of good and evil the reason being we need to choose the good of our own free will as do the angels.

The tree of knowledge is the law given to Israel the law tells us what sin is I also believe it's a lesson from God that the law and punishment does not work people still break the law.

But what will work and does work is Love with love the law becomes obsolete.

A few wise words from St Paul

.    The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

             

Love and peace
Dave

[Winnie]

I often think of :
For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. Romans 11:32
Just that was referring to a passage about Israel, but could be expanded to all. Except that it appears to be referring to humankind and not including angels.

In God there is no darkness at all, and yet we are told God created good and evil. Isaiah 45:7

Probably not in the beginning when it was good but after creation was fallen. To use evil for good purposes.
1 Timothy 1:20

Maybe God allows this for good purposes as just said, but still I see freewill in it, in that creation can be  accepting or rejecting  God. Although not always have the choosing of  their own situations . Though within that can rely on God, or not rely on Him.

Also God forknows and must have known creation would become fallen and planned accordingly.
 

'I form the light, and create darkness:
I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things.'
(Isaiah 45:7)   

Hi @Christianna,

This verse that you quote (above) I feel needs explanation: for the Hebrew word translated 'evil' (H7451) is never translated 'sin'.  I feel it is important to stress this, for as you know there are those who will use this verse inappropriately.  Here in this verse disturbance is contrasted with peace.  The word, 'create' also, in this verse means 'bring about'. God brings calamity about as the inevitable consequence of sin. He did not create sin.

Thank you.
In Christ Jesus
Chris

[Christianna]

Hi Winnie, 
I didn't mean in the context of sin because in God there is no darkness at all. He doesn't create sin. It was more in terms of calamity and allows things to happen, for good purposes.