The Reformed don;t believe in Free Will because their god cannot handle being sovereign with the existence of mankind's free will.
The one true God, OTOH, is quite sovereign, powerful, and all mighty with man's free will. The Reformed believe that their god has created most people only to throw them into Hell--with no possibility of them having a chance. It doesn't matter what you believe, you're going to Hell or Heaven based on some arbitrary decision by someone else with no input from you.
I don’t understand how someone can worship the wrong God, if there is only one? Who hears their prayers and thoughts?
Just because someone believes in God in their own way, does that really change God?
So, you believe in a god called "Free Will"? Interesting.
There was a movie back in the 90s called "Free Willy." Does that movie have anything to do with the god you worship?
Actually Martin Luthers text on "Bondage of the Will" that He did believe in Free will, but that it was limited. As a reformed person, I believe Man has free will between Sin and Iniquity and that Man does Not do Good on his own. Christ said "Apart from me you can do Nothing" (John). So for those apart from Christ, they are incapable of doing anything Good to please God, since they do not do it by Faith. The Apostle Paul echos this in saying "Anything apart from Faith is Sin" (Romans). Thus All mankind is shut up in sin just as the Apostle Paul said (Romans)
Psalm 14, Psalm 53 and Romans 3 says that "No one Seeks for God" - that the default nature of mankind is Not to Seek God. Therefore something has to happen for someone to have desire to Seek him. That answer is found in John chapter 6, where Christ says "No one comes unto me except the Father draws him".
I argue with you that Mankind has Free will but will not by default choose to seek God unto Salvation with it. But like Adam and Eve will run away from the things of God and thinking about Him. God made Salvation Open upon the cross, but Mankind rejected it "He came unto his own and His own received Him not".
Thus God had to provide Salvation with His own arm and draw Men "From every Tribe and Tongue", the Elect of His own choosing for Mankind was Dead in Trespasses and Sin and had no value in themselves or in what they would do.
The amazing thing is that God is still in the business of resurrecting Hearts and Minds so that they can hold faith and is still irresistibly drawing men and women to Himself into a relationship of Love. It is He alone that deserves praise for there was nothing in ourselves of that which we would do "that no one should boast".
Ask yourself "Who Gets the Glory" with the Doctrine of Free Will? Is it Man who Chooses (Man gets the Glory), or is it God who Sovereignty Elects and draws?
So what you’re saying is, if a person reads Romans 9, where Free Will (at least in its Greek form) gets pretty well trashed by Paul, and they conclude that it was necessary for God to contravene human will via divine election if salvation was to happen at all, then they are worshippers of some deity other than the Almighty Father of Jesus Christ? Because they believed his Apostle’s words at face value?
Because if that’s what you’re saying, then you are making a theologically precise conception of God a prerequisite to salvation, and I would think that was big news, because your conception relies more on Greek philosophy than Scripture. So then maybe the Greeks were the true venue of divine revelation?
But if, as Jesus says, salvation is of the Jews, then the decidedly Greek conception of a completely indeterminate freedom of human will should at least be questioned by those who wish to subject themselves to divine revelation. What does Scripture say?
Daniel 4:35 All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, “What have You done?”
No one can restrain his hand, except via the exercise of Free Will Almighty, of course, which can turn back the desires of God as if they were nothing, according to you.
Perhaps you think, John said “whosoever will, may come,” and any knowledgeable Calvinist will agree with you wholeheartedly. Are you surprised? Many who think they understand Calvinism have only ever been shown the caricature and do not understand the reality. The question is never whether people who repent and believe will be saved. We have His word that they will.
The question is one of reflection: Why did this person believe, and another not. They are both sinners, by which we mean they both have a will bent to sin. Now if their will is dead to righteousness, if they do not have the gift of faith, how can they believe? Belief is the first act of faith. Belief is the anti-sin. Without faith there cannot be belief.
And I do not mean belief as the intellectual assent James speaks of, which falls short of salvation. But I mean the Abrahamic belief that takes God at his word and acts accordingly, which God accounts as righteousness. That is faith in action, and it is the gift of God. Without it we lie as dead as a doornail in the tomb of our sin. Without the call of God, there would be for us no stirring to life, no rhythm of breathe, no sitting up and taking nourishment. As with Lazarus, we are as unfree as we can possibly be, until His voice shatters the night of our death and floods our darkened souls with His light. The new birth, at least as Jesus described it, is not so much a cooperative process as the gift of new life where none was before, and where none was sought. As Paul says, none are righteous, and none seek God. Romans 3:11.
Therefore, while you may prefer the Greek model of an arbitrary freedom of human will, I will set my course to follow Scripture. If you think that results in the worship of a false god, I would only ask you to provide Scripture references which prove your case, namely, that a disagreement among otherwise faithful believers about what God did or didn’t do before any of them were born is sufficient grounds to consider them unbelievers in the true God. In my Bible, the test for such disavowals of fellowship is much stricter. Someone, for example, who disputes that Jesus is the one and only Savior, or that he rose from the dead, or that there is a God of righteousness whose law has been broken and with whom we must be reconciled if we are to be saved. Cutting people out of the faith on grounds not specified in Scripture is easy to do, and we have been doing it to each other for centuries, but that doesn’t make it right.