It is my impression that across denominations that [compatibilism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism) is the dominant position and answer to the question of divine sovereignty and human free will. The main alternative is [libertarian free will](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)) , which states that humans have totally free wills with no control (or maybe even no influence) by God. (The other alternative to compatibilism is total determinism, but that is not generally considered compatible with Christianity.) When it comes to the Bible, Christians have historically believed that God [inspired the writing of the scriptures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration) , but in a way that left the human author utilising their full creative capabilities. This has been called the "dual authorship" of the scriptures: when we ask who wrote the Bible, we can truly say both its human authors and God. This doctrine fits perfectly with compatibilism; it can be seen as just one particular application of how divine and human wills coexist. So how do those who reject compatibilism explain the inspiration of scripture? Can they also uphold the dual authorship of scripture? Can they uphold the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy/infallibility, or do they say that only when the Biblical authors wrote down a direct divine revelation (such as Habakkuk 2) is the text without flaw?

Me and a friend have been debating this topic and I'm a little stumped I must say. My friend believes in Hard Determinism where desires control us and our desires come from what he calls "life path". I tried refuting this by saying free will and desires are distinct but he simply brought up that our strongest desires determine our free will. So if you use your free will to go against your strongest desire, then you are still using a stronger desire to over come another stronger desire if that makes sense. So after doing some research I stumbled upon libertarianism and it seems like that is the view point I gave to him about free will and desires being distinct. But I'm not sure if libertarianism is the Biblical explanation. So how does God explain free will and desires being distinct? Can we really choose to not follow our stronger desire without a stronger desire causing us to do so? If so, then why would we choose to do something we do not want to do unless the desire to do that thing is stronger than the desire to not do it?

From [SEP](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theodicies/#FreeWillTheo) : >#### 6. Free Will Theodicy > >With respect to the question of the justification of pain, cruelty, and other evils in relation to God, it is important to acknowledge the significant role played in theistic thought by appeal to the power of human free choice. We have seen above that many of the theodicies on offer rely on it. One prominent way to defend the goodness and other perfections of God in response to the evils of the world is to point out that, after all, God did not bring about the Rwandan genocide or the Holocaust or someone’s sexual assault. Instead, these were caused by human actions, which the theist may suggest were freely chosen by perpetrators. On the free will theodicy, God remains an absolutely perfect being even in light of the suffering in the world, because it is created beings who freely choose to harm each other (and non-human animals and the environment), and none of this is God’s direct doing. What goes wrong in our world is not the fault of God but rather the fault of the wrongdoers who use their power of free will to act badly. The free will theodicist holds that it is a great good that God gave us free will and allows us direct the course of our lives by way our own free choices (Swinburne 1998). The result of the gift of free will to the billions of people on the planet is a whole lot of bad consequences from evil choices, which God is justified in allowing because of the greater good of the gift of free will. > > Several problems face the line of thought that lays all the blame for the pain and suffering in the world on the bad free choices of created beings. One problem is this: even in cases of free actions that cause harm, if God is in control of the universe, then God at least allows the harm to be freely done to the victims by the perpetrators. God’s omnipotence indicates that God could have intervened to prevent a bad choice and could have intervened after the choice to prevent its most harmful consequences. God could cause someone who intends to rape to twist his ankle and fall to the ground, for instance, or to get violently ill, or faint, preventing the intended victim’s assault. In answer to the question of why God did not do that, there must be some good reason. Preserving the stability of natural laws is a good that is sometimes suggested here. (For relevant discussion see Swinburne 1998 and for a contrary view see Sterba 2019.) > > Another problem for the free will theodicy is that not all cases of suffering are brought about intentionally by human free choices, such as damage in the wake of hurricanes and the ravages of inherited diseases. Bad medical outcomes in surgical cases, too, do not always result from malicious intent or professional negligence. When a tornado rips through a town destroying some homes and not others, no human being freely chose for certain houses rather than neighboring ones to be destroyed, and no human being freely brought about the tornado in the first place. > > Another difficulty facing the free will theodicy is this: whereas some philosophers think that free will would be ruled out by the truth of causal determinism (the hypothesis that at each moment there is exactly one future, given the laws of nature and the events of the past), other free will theorists believe that we can act freely even if causal determinism is true. **Arguably it is crucial that the free will appealed to by a free will theodicist must be indeterminist (libertarian) in nature**. (For exploration of indeterminist accounts of free will, see Clarke 2003; Ekstrom 2000, 2019; Franklin 2018; Kane 1996; Mele 2006; O’Connor 2000.) **The free will theodicist thus must maintain that all compatibilist accounts of the nature of free agency, including those provided by Frankfurt (1971), Watson (1975), Fischer (2012), Nelkin (2011), and Wolf (1990), among others, are implausible accounts**. In citing the free will of created beings as the greater good that justifies God in permitting instances of evil or the facts about evil, the free will theodicist also needs to hold that causal determinism is, in fact, false and that we human beings do have **libertarian free will**. Without maintaining these positions, the free will theodicist lacks an explanation for the violence and cruelty in the world that shields God and preserves God’s goodness, since God could have established the initial conditions of the universe and decreed that deterministic natural laws govern all events, so that the events in the world unfolded to include none that are painful, harmful or wrong. **God could have done this even in worlds in which he created free (in a compatibilist sense) rational beings**. > > Here is an additional problem for the theodicy according to which God’s allowance of suffering is due to God’s desire to create beings with **libertarian free will** and to allow creatures to carry out their evil intentions as well as their good ones: such morally significant libertarian free will (in Alvin Plantinga’s (1974) terms)—or what Swinburne (1998) calls serious free will, which is **libertarian free will** with respect to seriously good and seriously evil potential actions—must have immense positive value, in order for it to be sensible to think that a perfect being would decide to create beings with that power. The claim that such serious **libertarian free will** is worth it stands in need of convincing defense. (This issue is addressed in detail in Ekstrom 2021.) Notice that there is a difference between a proposed causal explanation of evil and a divine justification for allowing evil. If the causal explanation for a vast range of cases of evil in our world is human free will, then still, in order to serve as a God-justifying reason for permitting those evils, it has to be a very great outweighing good for God to create beings with serious morally significant free will and not to intervene to prevent the consequences of their wrong choices. My understanding of [Calvinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_theology#Calvinism) is that Calvinists believe in *predestination*. But predestination seems to invalidate libertarian free will, which is a key premise in the Free Will Theodicy. **What is the Calvinist take on the Free Will Theodicy?**

Recently I've been partaking in multiple discussions regarding the concept of free will on this site (for the curious, see [here](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/95960/61679) , [here](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/95956/61679) , [here](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/95981/61679) , [here](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/95830/61679)) , mainly because of its relevance in the context of the [free-will defense against the problem of evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free-will_defense) , and through these exchanges I've noticed that the concept of *character* is very important for at least some of its proponents. To illustrate this, let me quote this [answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/95831/61679) : > The "missing link" here is ***character.*** God has free will, and is fully capable of being tempted and enticed to do evil, but consistently chooses to use that free will in benevolent and righteous ways. Or this [answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/95957/61679) : > One attribute of **perfect character** is having free-will and always > using it to choose not to sin. (Sin is defined as breaking God's > law, choosing to go against God's will. But since one can't use > free-will to go against *one's own* will, God is by definition > incapable of sinning.) > > If God *created* a being that is totally incapable of sinning it would > by definition not have free-will (with respect to sin). **And without** > **free-will, it would not have perfect character**. So God cannot *create* > a being with free-will that is incapable of sinning. > > Yet it *is* possible for a created being to have free-will and at the > same time be incapable of sinning (i.e. to have this attribute of > **perfect character**). > > **Perfect character** is something that a created being must develop over > time, by learning to choose not to sin. Eventually, choosing not to > sin becomes part of one's nature, while choosing to sin becomes > impossible. > > **Christians have free-will, but their purpose in life is to develop** > **perfect characters that *always freely choose* not to sin**. They can > *develop* this God-like character, but by definition no one can be *created* with it. Note: I'm not endorsing these answers. I'm just showing them as examples of Christians who believe in the existence of some kind of mysterious interaction between *character* (the main topic of this question) and *(libertarian) free will*. Just to make sure we are on the same page, I understand (libertarian) free will as an [agent's ability to choose otherwise](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#FreeDoOthe) , that is, having more than one course of action available to them, when making a choice at time *t*, given a fixed past up to *t*. Essentially, the rejection of [causal determinism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/) when it comes to a person's ability to make decisions. And I think most people usually mean the same thing when they talk about (libertarian) free will. Yet, the concept of *character* still puzzles me. First of all, because I'm not aware of any definition of libertarian free will where *character* is an essential part of the definition. I see *character* as a rather foreign concept in this context. And so when people pull out the *character* card in discussions about free will, to me it sounds like they are mixing concepts in a handwavy fashion, without providing any rigorous definitions, without clarifying how the concepts are supposed to make sense together in the same sentence. What is *character*? Is there a rigorous definition of *character* in Christianity? Does *character* exist as a "thing" in the first place (i.e., what is the ontological status of *character*)? Does *character* have any measurable or detectable causal effects on reality? For example, does an agent's *character* influence said agent in a way that determines or narrows the range of options available to them when making a decision at time *t*, and if so, how? And what is the relationship between an agent's *character* and the laws of physics? Is *character* nothing but an emergent property of the laws of physics, in the sense that the concept of *character* is a convenient high-level abstraction, but ultimately adds nothing new to what the laws of physics can already explain? Is a person's *character* nothing but the current state of the neural wiring of their brain? Is *character* nothing but brain chemistry? Or is *character* something beyond the laws of physics, not reducible to them, and different from free will at the same time? And if *character* goes beyond the laws of physics, where is the information of this *character* stored? Can it change/be updated over time? Does it obey its own "character update rules"? In short, is there a rigorous definition of *character* in Christianity, and how is this definition reconciled with the laws of physics, how the brain works, and how libertarian free will works? --- Regarding my sub-question about the relationship between *character* and the laws of physics, this question is closely related: [How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/30415/66156)

This question is scoped to those who believe that: - We have [libertarian free wills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)) - We will retain our free will in Heaven - We will be sinless in Heaven **Question**: If Heaven demonstrates that it is possible to live in a world where (1) there is no sin and (2) everyone has free will, then why did God not create a world like that to begin with? The Garden of Eden was a place where Adam & Eve had free will but could sin (in fact, they did), whereas Heaven (after Jesus' second coming) will be a place where everyone will have free will and yet will never sin. Is there a fundamental difference between the nature or the setting of Adam & Eve and the nature or the setting of the saints in Heaven? If so, why?

**Premise of this question**: first of all, I'm basing this question on my common sense understanding that moral responsibility and judgement presuppose that human beings have the capacity to make **free choices** in the [*libertarian sense*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)) , meaning that every time a human being is faced with the options A = *sinning* and B = *not sinning*, he or she is morally responsible for choosing A instead of B because they could perfectly have chosen otherwise. In other words, the *counterfactual* situation in which the person chooses B instead of A was perfectly possible in principle, as there was nothing forcing the person to choose A, yet they still freely chose A, and so they are morally responsible for it. This runs contrary to the [*deterministic*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism) view, in which *counterfactual* situations are impossible, meaning that a person couldn't have chosen otherwise. If a person chooses A, it means that it was *impossible* for them to have chosen B, and viceversa. In other words, a human being is not more morally responsible for choosing A than a rock is morally responsible for "choosing" to fall downhill or a light bulb is morally responsible for "choosing" to produce light when its switch is turned on. **Questions**: 1\) According to Christians who believe in libertarian free will, do ALL human beings have a genuine chance to make the right choice **every single time**? In other words, do ALL human beings, in principle, have the possibility to choose to live a perfect, sinless life? 1.1) If your answer is YES: then how come pretty much no one chooses to do that? 1.2) If your answer is NO: then doesn't this contradict the free will assumption? If people are free not to sin, shouldn't this imply that people are free to choose to *never* sin (i.e. to choose the right option *every single time*)? **Is there anything forcing people to sin at least once?** If so, what is it, and how can someone be held responsible for being forced to do something? Aren't rocks forced by gravity to fall downhill? Should we hold rocks morally responsible too? ___ Related questions: - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/57626/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/83687/50422

I'm referring to this article: [What Is Free Will?](https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/chosen-by-god/what-is-free-will) , which is a transcript of a sermon by Reformed Theologian [R.C. Sproul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._C._Sproul) (a video recording of the sermon is available in the same article). I highly recommend reading the article (or watching the video) before posting an answer. The article contains the following sections: - Spontaneous Choice - No Moral Significance - A Rational Impossibility - The Mind Choosing - The Strongest Desire - Your Money or Your Life - “What I Want, I Do Not Do” - Free and Determined - Sinners Want to Sin - In Bondage to Sin Notice that Sproul doesn't exactly use the term "[libertarian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)) free will", but he argues against what he calls "Spontaneous Choice", which for all practical purposes appears to be equivalent to the libertarian understanding of free will. **Question**: How do Christians who believe in libertarian free will respond to R.C. Sproul's critique in the article "What Is Free Will?"? _____ **Related questions** - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/89782/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/48979/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/54588/50422 - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/83687/50422 _____ **Appendix - Quotes from the article** Below relevant quotes from the article (emphasis mine): > **If God predestines people to salvation, then what about free will? Doesn't the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination override human free will? What about choice?** Considering the doctrine of divine election in this message, Dr. Sproul discusses some of the fundamentally wrong assumptions people have when they think of free will. > I want to direct our attention to an examination of what we mean by the words free will. What does it mean to have a free will? **What does it mean to be a free moral agent, a volitional creature under the sovereignty of God?** > > First of all, let me say that there are different views of what free will comprises that are bandied about in our culture. I think it’s important that we recognize these various views. > ### Spontaneous Choice > The first view is what I’m going to call the “humanist” view of free will, which I would say is the most widely prevalent view of human freedom that we find in our culture. I’m sad to say that, in my opinion, it’s the most widely held view within the church as well as outside the church. > > **In this scheme, free will is defined as our ability to make choices spontaneously**. **That is, the choices we make are in no wise conditioned or determined by any prior prejudice, inclination, or disposition. Let me say that again: this view says that we make our choices spontaneously**. Nothing previous to the choice determines the choice—no prejudice, prior disposition, or prior inclination—**the choice comes literally on its own as a spontaneous action by the person**. > > **I see at the outset two serious problems that we face as Christians with this definition of free will. The first is a theological, moral problem and the second is a rational problem**. I should really say that there are three problems because the whole lecture will focus on the third one, but, at the outset, we immediately see two problems. > ### No Moral Significance > The first is, as I said, a theological, moral problem. **If our choices are made purely spontaneously, without any prior inclination or disposition, then in a sense we’re saying that there is no reason for the choice. There is no motive for the choice; it just happens spontaneously.** > > **If that is the way our choices operate, then we immediately face this problem: how could such an action have any moral significance at all? This is because one of the things the Bible is concerned about in the choices we make is not only what we choose, but also what our intention is in the making of that choice.** > > We recall, for example, the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. When he has this reunion with his brothers many years later, and they repent of that former sin, what does Joseph say to his brothers? When he accepts them and forgives them, he says, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). God made a choice in the matter. God had chosen, at least, to allow this to happen and to befall Joseph. His brothers made a choice about what to do with Joseph. Their inclination in the making of that choice was wicked. God also made a choice in allowing it to take place, but God’s intention in this activity was altogether righteous and holy. > > So God, in considering a good deed, not only examines the outward deed itself (the action), but He also considers the inner motivation (the intent behind the deed). But if there are no inner motivations, if there is no real intentionality (to use the philosophical term), then how could the action be of any moral significance? It just happens. > ### A Rational Impossibility > **Even deeper than that problem, the humanist view immediately faces the question of whether or not such a choice could actually be made. That is, the question is not simply whether it would be moral if it were made, but whether a creature without any prior disposition, inclination, bent, or reason could even make a choice**. > > Let’s look at this by way of a couple of examples. What is attractive about the idea that I have no prior inclination or disposition is that my will would be neutral. It is inclined neither to the left nor to the right. It is neither inclined toward righteousness nor toward evil but is simply neutral. There is no previous bent or inclination to it. > > I think of the story of Alice in Wonderland when Alice, in her travels, comes to the fork in the road, and she can’t decide whether to take the left fork or the right fork. She looks up, and there is the Cheshire Cat in the tree, grinning at her. She asks of the Cheshire Cat, “Which road should I take?” And the Cheshire Cat replies by saying: “That depends. Where are you going?” Alice says, “I don’t know.” Then what does he say? “Then I guess it doesn’t matter.” > > If you have no intent, no plan, no desire to get anywhere, what difference does it make whether you take the left or the right? In that situation, we look at it and think, “Alice now has two choices: she can go to the left, or she can go to the right.” But really she has four choices: she can go to the left, she can go to the right, she can turn and go back where she came from, or she can stand there and do nothing until she perishes from her inactivity, which is also a choice. > > So, she has four choices, and the question we’re going to ask is: Why would she make any of those four choices? If she has no reason or inclination behind the choice, if her will is utterly neutral, what would happen to her? If there is no reason to prefer the left to the right, nor to prefer standing there to going back, what choice would she make? She wouldn’t make a choice. She would be paralyzed. > > **The problem we have with the humanist notion of freedom is the old problem of the rabbit out of the hat, but without a hat and without a magician. It is something coming out of nothing, an effect without a cause. A spontaneous choice, in other words, is a rational impossibility. It would have to be an effect without a cause**. > > **I would add that, from a biblical perspective, man in his fallenness is not seen as being in a state of neutrality with respect to the things of God. He does have a prejudice. He does have a bias. He does have an inclination, and his inclination is toward wickedness and away from the things of God**. I just say that in passing as we look at various Christian views of the freedom of the will.

Romans 9:14-24 (ESV): > 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, **“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy**. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 **So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills**. > > 19 You will say to me then, **“Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?** 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience **vessels of wrath prepared for destruction**, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? How do Christians who believe in the existence of [libertarian free will](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)) interpret this passage? Related: [Do the 'vessels of wrath' have libertarian free will? Romans 9:14-24](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q/54481/38524)

Did Judas have libertarian free will? If so, what would've happened to the salvation plan had he chosen not to betray Jesus? Would there have been no crucifixion, and therefore, no atonement, no forgiveness of sins, no salvation? On the other hand, if the betrayal was a 100% guaranteed thing, with Judas having no actual possibility whatsoever of **not** betraying Jesus, would that mean that Judas had no real free will, and if that's the case, then how can he be held accountable for his actions? I would like to know if there are philosophical explanations published by reputable Christian sources addressing this complex dilemma.

In principle, the decisions made by an agent endowed with freedom of the will (in the [libertarian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)) sense) are not determined. That is, a free agent's decisions **cannot** be the result of a sequence of causes and effects unfolding over time in accordance with deterministic rules (as would be the case of a rock falling downhill because of gravity, dominoes falling one after another in a chain reaction because of physics, light illuminating a room because of electromagnetism, a robot performing actions in an environment because of the sophisticated software with which it was programmed, etc.). In other words, the decisions of a free agent do not obey the laws of physics. They do not follow deterministic rules. They are unpredictable. Even if we had a supercomputer that could perfectly simulate the laws of physics, and if we had all the information about every aspect of the universe, it would still be impossible for such a supercomputer to predict what a free agent would do in any given instance. Having said that, in Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV), Jesus declares the following: > 13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, **and those who enter by it are many**. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, **and those who find it are few**. 1 Peter 4:18 (ESV) affirms something similar: > And “**If the righteous is scarcely saved**, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Jesus and Peter make very clear factual statements about the final outcome of the decisions made by humans, namely, that most will perish and just a tiny minority will be saved. If human beings have free will, this means that Jesus and Peter are making predictions about something that by definition shouldn't be predictable. In other words, they are predicting the unpredictable. Moreover, Jesus provides a justification for his claim: he says that those who choose eternal life are few because the gate and path leading to that end are narrow/hard, whereas those who choose eternal perdition are many because the gate and path leading to that end are wide/easy. If we think about it, this is a logical, deterministic explanation for the decisions made by free agents (paradox bell ringing for anyone?), as if free will could be constrained in such a way that certain "free" decisions become statistically "more likely" than others. This goes against the intuition that free agents should be equally capable of choosing any course of action among their current options at hand, and, therefore, that salvation and damnation should be equally likely. **Question**: How do Christians who believe in libertarian free will make sense of Matthew 7:13-14, 1 Peter 4:18 and similar passages? If free agents are equally capable of choosing any option, why is the option of damnation so overwhelmingly preferred over the option of salvation? Shouldn't the distribution be 50/50? How can free will and a strong statistical tendency toward damnation be reconciled? ____ For the curious, a related question I asked on the Philosophy Stack: [Do probability and statistics apply to the decisions of an agent with libertarian free will?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/82452/do-probability-and-statistics-apply-to-the-decisions-of-an-agent-with-libertaria)

**Libertarian free will** is the position that a person’s choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God. Libertarians generally argue that we cannot be held responsible for our own choices unless we were entirely able to have made a contrary choice instead.1 I’ve included both Arminians and open theists in the question because my understanding is they would generally agree on their views and would both self-identify as holding the libertarian free will position.2 Please no philosophical or logical arguments or opinions. The question here is what case can be made for this view from the Bible. Answers are welcome from determinists and compatibilists as long as you think you can faithfully represent the libertarian position (always cite your sources if applicable!). ---- 1 This is not to be confused with the political view known as libertarianism. Political libertarianism and libertarian free will, sometimes called metaphysical libertarianism, are completely unrelated. For a fuller definition see *[Theopedia › Libertarian free will](http://www.theopedia.com/libertarian-free-will)* .
2 For an Arminian defending libertarian free well and self-identifying as libertarian, see *[Society of Evangelical Arminians › Libertarian free will](http://evangelicalarminians.org/libertarian-free-will/)* . For an open theist, see *[ReKnew.org › Is Free Will compatible with Predestination?](http://reknew.org/2007/12/is-free-will-compatible-with-predestination/)* .

I have seen several responses to theodicy questions revolving around the concept of "free will." I am not familiar with any self-contained biblical basis for this belief (that is, no extra-biblical support is required to defend the position). I am aware that there are several variations of the doctrine of "free will," so I would like to limit answers to "free will" defined as: - the ability of people to make their own choices (no predestination) - applicable to everyone (not limited to groups such as the redeemed) - applicable throughout time (not just before the fall; still applicable today)