The last nail in the coffin of FREE WILL.

The REALITY: Man is a puppet
The PROBLEM: He cannot see the strings
The DELUSION: I am the master of my fate; the captain of my soul

The doctrine of free will is THE MOST destructive doctrine held by the church today.  The doctrine goes something like this:

When God made man he put in him the ability to freely choose.  This free will is what allows man to come to God or to refuse him.

This doctrine and variations of it has permeated the church, and has become the lynchpin for a host of heresies that in and of themselves CANNOT stand without it.

Can a person choose?
This is a valid question because if we are to lay to rest the teaching of free will this glaring reality must be addressed.  The question 'can a person choose' is a good one, but it does not offer proof of free will.  Yes, a person can choose; but the real question is 'Is a person FREE to choose'.  As Christians we often see the world in black and white.  To us there are those who are of God and those who are not.  Let us examine the unbeliever.

Is the unbeliever free to choose?
We see the unbeliever as a reprobate CHOOSING to live a life of sin and refusing God.  What does the bible say of him:

Psalms 51:5
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psalms 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth.

Here we have the BIBLICAL description of EVERY human EVER born.  We are born NOT with a clean slate, but rather we are all born with a propensity to sin.  Notice that the scripture does not tell us that we come to CHOOSE sin but that we are BORN sinners.  Now since we are born this way what does this birth produce:

Ephesians 2:3
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Paul tells us that unbelievers 'live in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind'.  Why is this?  It is because they are 'BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH'.  Do you see that?  Let me pose a question 'Are these people operating by their own will?'.  Let the word of God answer:

2 Timothy 2:26
...and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

Do you see the condition of EVERY man born into the world.  They are ALL being HELD CAPTIVE BY THE DEVIL TO DO HIS WILL.  They are not performing their OWN will as the doctrine of free will purports.  The bible says that they are in the SNARE of the devil.  The word snare means trap.  If you are in a trap ARE YOU FREE?  Not only are they in a trap but they are being held captive to perform the WILL OF THE DEVIL.  Do you see any freedom here?  Whose will are they performing, their own or the devil's?

As you continue to grasp at the brittle threads of free will you may say 'well, they can escape at any time the want'.  Oh really?  The following verses tell us how they got into the trap in the first place and why:

Romans 11:32
For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

Galatians 3:22
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

I have written before in the post 'Why do sinners sin' that the unbeliever can no more stop sinning than a blind man can avoid a ditch. God is the ONLY ONE who can set the sinner free from the captivity of Satan; NOT some FREE WILL.  Consider:

2 Timothy 2:25
...with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, IF PERHAPS GOD may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

But surely the Christian has free will doesn't he?
You may still want to cling to the heresy of free will by concluding that the Christian has free will since he is of God.  NO HE DOES NOT.  Consider this scripture:

Philippians 2:13
...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Solomon understood this:

1 Kings 8:57-58
May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers.

It is God doing then inclining! The Christian has been led to believe that it is he that is choosing to obey God by his own free will.  Consider:

1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has CAUSED us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
  
We are all slaves.
The New Testament uses the Greek word 'Doulos'.  This word is translated as 'slave' in english.  This is an important description because it helps us to understand how man operates.  The word translated as slave means 'ONE WHO HAS NO WILL OF HIS OWN AND IS UNDER COMPLETE CONTROL OF ANOTHER'. Since this is the case we can see how the doctrine of free will can finally be defeated by the following:

Romans 6:15-22
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey –whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 

Remember that this 'offering' of ourselves to sin occurs at CONCEPTION.  Let us continue:

...But thanks be to God that, though you USED to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 

Remember this obedience occurs BY GOD's WILL.  Continue:

...You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

The Christian now is a slave, that is WITHOUT HIS OWN WILL, to righteousness.  Notice that the condition of slavery does NOT cease; we simply move from one master to another.  He continues:

...I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever- increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 

Did you see that?  Sinners are FREE FROM THE CONTROL OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.  Go on:

...What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

There it is, the one born of God is himself a SLAVE to God.  No free will here.  In fact Paul takes it further in telling us thatWE ARE OWNED:

1 Corinthians 6:20
For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

I pray that God will grant you understanding as you too come to see that indeed we are ALWAYS slaves.