Is the Will Free by Nature or by Grace?

You may be surprised to discover that this subject is much more simple than most people tend to make it. The fact is, it can easily be proven to all Christians, that fallen man has no free will, as the Bible defines it. Ask most evangelicals, however, whether man has a free will, and most will answer, "yes of course". Here are two simple questions which will remove all false presuppositions and prove, once for all, that the natural man has no free will:

1. Do you believe that the Holy Spirit plays any role in the sinner coming to faith in Christ? (All true evangelicals will answer 'yes')

2. Do you believe that, apart from any supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, the sinner, by nature, has the will, ability, affection and desire to come to Christ? (All true evangelicals will answer 'no')

Thus you have, in two simple questions, completely disarmed any and all argument against the free will of man. Here is plain proof that all Christians, without exception, believe that no man is found NATURALLY willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ. The natural man, apart from the Holy Spirit, has no free will, because, of necessity, due to a corruption of nature, he would never naturally submit to Christ. The Scripture describes fallen man as those who love darkness (John 3:19), are in bondage to sin (Gal 4:3; 6:17, 20), and taken captive by Satan to do his will (2 Tim 2:25), until the Son sets them free (John 8:36). Why would the Son need to set them free from sin unless they were not free, i.e. slaves to sin? When we speak of man having no free will we are not saying man's will is not self-determined, because it is. It is not because of some outside coercion that the will is not free, because the will is not coerced. We simply do not believe that. Rather, the Scripture simply says that the will is evil by a corruption of nature, but only becomes good by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is not because of natural strength that we believe. We do not, in our unregenerate state, convert ourselves. By our own efforts, apart from the Holy Spirit, we cannot achieve this for Jesus says 'apart from Me you can do nothing.' The Scripture further testifies that "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3) and the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually appraised. They are foolishness to him (1 Cor 2:14) and he acts only as he is acted upon, in accordance to the measure of grace he has received. While the preaching of the gospel is necessary to cast forth the seed of the gospel, it will not fall onto good soil unless the Spirit plows up the fallow ground and germinates the seed (so to speak). The soil is not good by nature but is made good by grace.

People generally tend to confuse coersion with necessity. Recently a gentleman named Ron Rhodes was interviewed on radio station and he said God did not create us as robots ... and this is correct, and then he said, God gave us free choice [between good and evil]... which is right when applied to Adam (since his will was not yet corrupted)... but then he commits a fatal error is when he said that "our will is free just like Adams'" ...which is nonsense. Our will is corrupted and in bondage till Christ sets us free. What Rhodes means to say, I believe, is that we are not robots, which is true ... but this is not how the Scripture defines the will which is not free ... so it is wrong to teach that man has a free will. It destroys the very gospel we preach.