It depends on how one defines "free will". If what is absolutely real to us counts for anything, then we have some measure of free will. If God's perspective, which we cannot experience, is the only thing that matters then we do not. Notice that for your side's version of free will to be "real" it necessarily means that God follows the leadership of man. That would be true by definition. God sits back and watches who will accept Him, and then He writes their names in the Book of Life, etc. That does not describe to me an all-powerful and sovereign God, it describes a God who is weak, who mostly follows. An all-powerful God who just let things play out however they did would be one who cared comparatively LESS about His creation than a God who directed what happened.
If all we do is predetermined than we live in an illusion, because whatever we do is God's will. So, Judas and Pontius Pilate, Hitler, John the Baptist and Christ Himself were doing only what was preordained. In that heavenly soap opera there are no true villains and no true saints; just God-appointed actors.
If God's perspective, which we cannot experience, is the only thing that matters then we do not.
Neither you nor I know what is God's "perspective."
Notice that for your side's version of free will to be "real" it necessarily means that God follows the leadership of man.
No it doesn't. Those who come to God are saved; those who don't are lost. God offers salvation to the whole world. He is not partial. It is God's prerogative to call. No need to micro manage. If I invite you and Mark and Irish and all our Freeper Religion Forum friends to a party and some of you show up, while others don't, whose fault is it if those who didn't show up missed a great party? Am I following the leadership of others? Of course not. I make the invitation. Those who show up win, those who don't lose.
God sits back and watches who will accept Him, and then He writes their names in the Book of Life, etc.
No, God knew from all eternity who will come to him and who won't, and therefore who will be saved and who lost; but he is not the one who forces anyone to make those decisions. He doesn't have to sit and bite his nails, expecting the unknown, and hoping...
That does not describe to me an all-powerful and sovereign God, it describes a God who is weak
So, going back to my example with the invitation, I am weak for making the invitation to all and knowing that some will not show up? It seems to me that your definition of a strong God is the one that God forces people to "love" him or to hate him. That is not love, FK; that is a perversion.
If I send out invitations only to some and then force them to show up, are they there because they want to be or because they have to be? I think the qualitative difference is obvious. They are there because they must be not because they want to be. It's forced "love" FK. And some people like it that way...
The Reformed God, the God of the OT, is a Zeus-like being, unlike anything we see in, and know of Christ.