Free will is the ability to make choices without external coercion.  There are debates as to what extent this free will is to be understood as it relates to people.  There are two main views:  compatibilism and libertarianism. The compatibilist view is the position that a person’s freedom is restricted by his nature as is described in Scripture and that his free will is consistent with God’s foreordination.   In other words, he can only choose what his nature (sinful or regenerate) allows him to choose.  Therefore, such verses as 1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 3:10-12; Rom. 6:14-20 are used to demonstrate that, for example, the unbeliever is incapable of choosing God of his own free will since they say that the unbeliever cannot receive spiritual things, does no good and is a slave to sin. Libertarian free will says that the person’s will is not restricted by his sinful nature and that he is still able to choose or accept God freely.  Verses used to support this view are John 3:16 and 3:36.  Two subdivisions of libertarian free will would be “open absolute free will” which says that man’s choices are not knowable by God until they occur and “non-open absolute free will” which would state that God can know man’s choices but he cannot determine them.

The biblical position is compatibilism.  Since the Bible clearly teaches us that the unbeliever is restricted to making sinful choices (1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 3:10-12; Rom. 6:14-20), then we must conclude that anyone who believes in God (John 3:16; 3:36) does so because God has granted that he believes (Phil. 1:29), has caused him to be born again (1 Pet. 1:3), and chosen him for salvation (2 Thess. 2:13).

All the cults and false religious systems teach the libertarian view of free will that salvation and spiritual understanding are completely within the grasp of sinners (in spite of their enslavement to and deadness in sin).  For them, salvation would be totally up to the ability of the individual to make such a choice.

1. Man Apart from God
   1. Jer. 13:23, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”
   2. Rom. 5:10, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
   3. Rom. 8:7, “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.”
2. Verses related to free will choices of sinners
   1. John 1:13, “who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
   2. Rom. 9:16, “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
      1. “the man” is singular
   3. Rom. 9:18, “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
   4. 1 Cor. 2:14, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
   5. Phil. 1:29, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”