Does mankind have freedom of will? First, God does not determine the choices we make. He commands that every person repent and believe the gospel, as that is God’s righteous requirement upon all men. No matter the ability or inability of man, God’s requirement and command will not change. He still commands all men to repent because that is His righteous requirement.
If any man does not repent God has not determined the will of that man not to repent. Man is free to choose as far as God is concerned. In fact he has been commanded by God to repent. God has not willed that any man not repent. God’s will is that all men repent and come to the knowledge of the truth and thus He commands all men to do so.
This does not mean man has the ability to repent and believe the gospel. Man is born a slave to sin and as a slave he is not free. Just as any man born in the house of a slave is also a slave, so the man born in sin in Adam is a slave of sin. Man is not free, not because of God, but because of his own nature which he inherited from Adam. His nature holds him in bondage to sin. Why then is he accountable for Adam’s sin? He is not. Every man has sinned and has become accountable for his own actions.
Man’s Will
Man does not have the ability within his nature to repent. This is the consequence of his own sin and not of God’s decree. God does not determine man’s will. His own sin has bankrupted his nature of any helpfulness or ability or righteousness.
As Paul said, “That which I would, that I do not and that which I would not, that I do. I find a law working in my members, the body of sin…” (Rom 7:15-17). This is the case with every person born in sin. Man is under bondage to sin. That is, no man is free to choose, not because of God, God is not responsible for this, but because of our own sinful nature.
Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abides not in the house for ever: but the Son abides ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. (John 8:34-36).
Jesus said he that sins is the slave of sin. So the sinner is not free. That much is clear in scripture. Only Jesus can set the sinner free.
Those Born Again?
When we are born again we still have freedom of will in the sense that God does not determine our will, but because we have a new divine nature in the end we will choose those things that are pleasing to God. In this sense we are a slave to righteousness. We can do no other in the end, because this is our nature as children of God. One is either a “slave of sin” or a “slave of righteousness” (Rom 6:16-19).
No one can live to himself, but either to sin or to God. As Bob Dylan once wrote, “Gotta Serve Somebody”. We serve either sin or righteousness. No one is free. Freedom is a humanist illusion. Biblical freedom means being free from sin and from self-love.
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