Free will as defined as what you just illustrated. This is why I wished a specific example to work with.
Examining and evaluating facts and experience, using judgement, making choices determined by a chosen criteria and choosing to act based on these choices and conclusions.
What is your definition of free will?
“What is your definition of free will?”
That it’s “free” number one, and it most certainly isn’t free, as I mentioned in my previous post:
“This assumes that your idea of “free-will” actually exists. None of the Reformers ever denied that mankind has a “will,” and the scripture does not say we have no will either. But, it certainly isn’t a “free” will, as it is either described as being under bondage to sin, taken in “the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim 2:26) or held captive in the will of God who “works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Php 2:13). So to even utter the phrase “free will” is ridiculous. It is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusion projected by a corrupt nature that does not know itself. So you say that your life can have no meaning unless you have a free-will that simply doesn’t exist. In that case, you should, perhaps, find a new meaning for your life instead of fables!”
If you actually had “free” will, then you wouldn’t need the Holy Spirit to believe in Jesus Christ. You wouldn’t be in the bondage of Satan, and you would be able to cease sinning, as it is a ‘free’ choice to make. But, on the contrary, the unregenerate will is so wholly given over to sin, that it is incapable of even believing or even seeking God:
Rom 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (11) There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (12) They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
So therefore you can have a “will,” but it certainly is’t “free” will. It’s a will that acts, under necessity, according to its nature. In the case of the unregenerate, to death and sin. In the case of the regenerate, to believing in Jesus Christ.