Hello "Waronthesaints",<br><br> It seems you keep refering to Genesis in talking about us being created in God's image and how that gives us free will. Lets see what the scripture says there.<br><br>First God created man in His own image: <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Gen 1:26-27 "26 Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>The Hebrew word here for image is 'selem'. It literally translates "statue; image; copy." It is used here in Genesis 1 not to convey that God created man in the exact physical image of God, for we know that God is a spirit, but rather it implies that man was created with God's nature.<br><br>We now move to Genesis 5:1-3 (post fall) <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]"This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth."</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>This same word 'selem' is used in verse 3. A distinction is made here from verse 1, where they are in God's image, and verse 3, where Adam's son is in his image (again, not just meaning physical, but rather his nature...being a sinful one now). So with a sinful nature, man cannot equally choose God over sin.<br><br>So yes we bear the image of God, but that image has been marred by the consequences of imputed sin. We have 'free will' in the sense that we can act as free agents, but our ability to choose is limited by our nature. Thus God is not harsh in His soveriegnity, but rather very merciful that He chooses to regenerate any of us at all.<br><br>In Him,<br>Chris<br>
