In Genesis 1, God created man and woman and commanded them to obey (Genesis 2:17). But according to Genesis 3:6, Adam and Eve defied God. Adam and Eve could have made a decision to some extent. Adam and Eve rightfully assumed personal responsibility when they decided to eat the fruit from that tree and suffered the consequences. Does this, however, also presume free will?
All humanity has been corrupted
We have what the Bible refers to as a sinful nature (see, for example, Romans 7:18 NIV) because of Adam and Eve’s transgression, which caused [all mankind to be corrupted] (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:19). This implies that our hearts’ desires are inherently opposed to God and his ways. The LORD observed how vast man’s depravity on earth had grown, and that every desire of his heart was solely evil all the time, as Genesis 6:5 states.
We can now discuss whether or if mankind possesses “free will” at this point and, if so, speculate as to what that “free will” would entail.
No absolute free will
Genesis 6:5 makes it very evident that humans lack complete free choice because our hearts’ desires are evil. This implies that I am powerless to decide for myself what will please God. In the end, it means that I cannot “choose” to become a Christian. For this reason, the Bible refers to non-Christians as dead (Ephesians 2:1–3) and slaves (John 8:34), meaning that we are all hopeless and powerless because of ourselves.
This brings us to [the core of the gospel], where God freely grants us a new birth (see, for example, John 3:1–8, Ephesians 2:5, 7–10, and Colossians 2:13–14). Since we are all inherently dead and enslaved (slaves cannot free themselves, and dead people cannot make themselves alive), salvation must be a gift to us. We wander in darkness due of our sinful deeds, thus in this sense, no, we do not have free will (John 3:19). We are not “free” to choose to obey God or to satisfy him.
We do have freedom to act according to our nature
We do, however, have the flexibility to behave in accordance with our nature. The nature of the non-Christian is sinful, as has already been stated.
This implies that non-Christians behave in this way. Nothing they do will be acceptable to God: According to God, even the most compassionate and loving person is a sinner because of their wicked nature and evil heart (Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9). Non-Christians, however, are able to act in this way “freely.”
Christians also behave in accordance with their nature. It’s true that God has given us a new nature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), but we nevertheless harbor our old, sinful nature. As a result, we now tend to conduct mixed deeds; occasionally, we act in accordance with our new nature and do what is right and agreeable to God, but other times, we continue to sin. Paul expresses this tension in Romans 7:13–25.
Man’s responsibility and freedom
Scripture testifies to man’s responsibility and freedom and yet, it also testifies to God working all things together, holding all things together, allowing and ensuring that all things come to pass or not come to pass (See Genesis 50:20; the various prophecies in the Old Testament; Romans 8:28-29; Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:16-17). Our freedom to act is within the cosmic system that God superintends: we experience freedom to make decisions and execute actions, and yet God knew about our decisions before the beginning of time, and allowed us to make our decisions – whether the decisions be for good or evil (Proverbs 16:4). Our freedom to act according to our nature does no violence to God’s sovereign decrees and God’s decrees do no violence to our freedom of will. God is God and we are to trust that He has the absolute and incomprehensible ability to create a world in which everything is preordained while still giving humanity responsibility.
