Free Will

Is there any such thing as free will? The Calvinist says that man is free to choose, but only within the bounds of his fallen nature, and only within the bounds of God's apriori sovereign choices. So, when it comes to a man's destiny, a man only chooses within the bounds of what God has already chosen. When all is said and done, a man chooses only what God has already chosen for him.

This implies that, before a man is born, and even before the world existed, God chose, not only whether that man would believe in Him or not, but also whether the man would even be willing to believe. It further implies that no one can choose to be willing and that God chose beforehand that the vast majority of people would remain in their natural state of unwillingness and would spend eternity banished from His presence as punishment for that unwillingness which He willed for them in the first place.

I do not believe that these things are true.

I believe that God created all people with free will, and that this free will was not altered by the fall.

I believe that the will of man is something that continues to exist as free even though man is fallen and depraved. The fallen nature of man includes a propensity to blindness and ignorance. Left to his own devices, man cannot find God. This blind, ignorant state is utterly hopeless without the intervention and revelation of God.

Free will does not imply any power to act, choose, or exercise faith in God apart from His intervention.

Before the world existed, God knew those who would be willing to believe. He calls them His sheep. He has chosen them and knows them intimately from eternity past. Though they are helpless, blind, and ignorant, they are willing to believe the truth even though they don't know what it is without God's revelation. This willingness that they have is a choice. Man can choose to be willing, and he can choose to be unwilling. Those who choose to be willing hear His voice when it calls. Those who do NOT choose to be willing are left with only one option, to stubbornly harden their hearts, "close their eyes", and "plug their ears". This choice is not compelled by God, nor is it even compelled by their fallen nature. It is a free choice that did not have to be made, though God knew from before the world existed that they would make this choice. For this reason, these people are called the goats.

A prerequisite for being given an understanding of the truth is a willingness to follow it (when empowered). In John 7:17, Jesus says, "If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself." Willingness is not synonymous with ability. Jesus did not say, "If anyone is able to do His will...".

Paul makes clear that willingness confers no power. In Romans 7: 18-19, he says, "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."

I believe the fact that someone is willing to believe the truth is not necessarily obvious to an outside observer (unless that observer is God, Who knows all), nor is it necessarily even apparent to the person who is willing. 

In Matthew 13:10, when the disciples asked Jesus why he spoke in parables, He told them,

"To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in  parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, 

'You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;

You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;

For the heart of this people has become dull,

With their ears they scarcely hear,

And they have closed their eyes,

Otherwise they would see with their eyes,

Hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart and return,

And I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."

Note that it doesn't say that they failed to understand because God willed that they wouldn't understand. Rather, they failed because they closed their eyes. Man can harden his heart against the Lord and what He is saying. Psalm 95:7-9 says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness, where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.”

Hebrews 3 quotes the same passage and follows with, “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.” The implication here is that people can harden their hearts and, conversely, can refrain ("do not") from hardening their hearts. Otherwise, why would the writer of Hebrews encourage them to refrain?

People are called to pay attention to their attitude and adopt the right one. I believe this is a choice for both Christian and non-Christian. Neither are compelled to have a willing or unwilling heart. This is something that I believe God has left as free in the heart of man. Another way of saying it is, people can humble themselves, or they can refuse to humble themselves.