Meditate on the following (emphasis added):
"So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16, NKJV).
[W]ho were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God [we don't will ourselves saved]" (John 1:13, NKJV).
"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake" (Philippians 1:29, NKJV).
"... And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48, NKJV).
"... [But] the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded [hardened]" (Romans 11:7, NKJV, emphasis added).
Luther was an Augustinian monk, and Augustine said that we are "free but not freed." We maintain our power to make choices as humans, but we have lost our liberty--we are slaves to sin, and, as he said, we are unable not to sin (non posse non peccare)--a double negative. It's like being in jail and having the freedom to play cards, but not to walk outside for recreation at will--there is a limit to freedom and it's not absolute. We are slaves to sin and our sin nature. We are free to choose our own poison and are, what has been termed by theologians, voluntary slaves--we love our sin and have no natural inclination to seek God or to love Him and only a work of grace in our hearts changes it from a "heart of stone to a heart of flesh" (cf. Ezek. 36:26).
We are still free to act according to our desires, but they are the wrong desires. As Ovid, the Roman poet of antiquity wrote: "I see the better things and I approve them, but I follow the worst." The law of God is written on man's heart and he is culpable for breaking it (cf. Romans 2:15). Romans 3:11 is God's pet peeve: "[N]o one understands; no one seeks for God."
Most believers have wrongly assumed and appropriated the Catholic view of free will, that we have the capability to gain entree to God's grace or admittance into His presence by the merit of a positive attitude and willingness to cooperate with Him in our salvation, known as a pre-salvation work; however, "Salvation is of the Lord" [not of man alone nor of man and the Lord as in a cooperative or synergistic venture] (cf. Jonah 2:9). That statement of Jonah is the summation of Reformed theology and we must never think that we would've responded to the gospel call without God's wooing. We have lost the inclination to please God and do His will. We were elected unto faith, not because of it (known as the fallacious prescient view repudiated in Romans 8:30), because this would be grounds for merit. "No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draw him" (cf. John 6:44).
In today's humanist worldview man is exalted and seen as having the free will to do as he wishes or wants to. Martin Luther told Erasmus in his tome, The Bondage of the Will, that "free will" was too grandiose a term to ascribe to our power of choice or to make decisions from our depraved, fallen volition. You must define terms when you speak of free will, because we do have the power to disobey God and to choose our desserts, but we cannot believe in Christ apart from God's grace and work in our heart.
Adam and Eve had free will and blew it: they had the power to sin and the power not to sin, while a fallen man can only sin and is unable not to sin. Adam made the choice for us to disobey God in our place, and we are in Adam and held accountable for his failure and this is known commonly as original sin--this inherited virus which is our birthright as humans--we have remained human, but are no longer good, but maintain solidarity in Adam and we share his predicament he had the fall--i.e., the natural inclination to good has been forfeited.
In defining total depravity, one must take into consideration that the mind is corrupt and faulty, the emotions are perverted and easily swayed by evil and corrupted, and the will also is defiant and disobedient to God and this means our whole nature--intellect, emotions or heart, and will or volition--is depraved and there is nothing meritorious or righteous in us to be worthy of salvation--"... And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6, NKJV) and "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23, ESV).
God is able (He's omnipotent and you cannot limit God) to make the unwilling, willing according to Scripture: He works irresistible or efficacious grace in our hearts according to His will ("For it is God who works in you, both to do and to will of his good pleasure," cf. Phil. 2:13). God never makes us do anything we don't want to do (that is coercion or determinism when we don't have input), and there is no outside force working on us like we're puppets on a string or automatons. We all act according to our nature, and God is our Maker and preordained and predetermined our nature, whether melancholy, choleric, or sanguine, for example.
If you think about it, the will have very little input into a decision compared to other uncontrollable factors like circumstances, DNA, and the environment (the old nature vs. nurture debate). It is a fallacy to assume we need free will to be saved, we need wills made free! "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed" (cf. John 8:36). We are not "born free" as some postulate, but born into a state of slavery to our sin nature. Left to ourselves, we would not choose Christ, as Pascal said: "I would not have searched for Thee, if Thou hadst not found me."
Our freedom is a curse because we choose the evil and the wrong course and God must intervene and change our heart, by taking the initiative and making the first move of grace. We are free to act as we choose according to our nature, just like a dove naturally eats seeds and a raven goes for the carrion. Our will is free in that we act voluntarily, and not by compulsion. We're voluntary slaves! God remains sovereign in spite of our free will and we cannot thwart His decrees or will and upset His plan--our freedom doesn't restrict God's sovereignty: "...Who can resist His will?" (Cf. Romans 9:19).
To think that we can act independently of God's will and disturb His plan is blasphemous and exalts man and dethrones God--this is the agenda of Secular Humanism, which believes man is the measure of all things and is the starting point of our understanding of reality, and not God the source of all truth ("In the beginning God...").
St. Augustine of Hippo said, "We are free but not free." This isn't a clever play on words but saying that we do as we choose but have lost our liberty. It's like being in jail and having the freedom to do anything according to the rules. Our natures are corrupt and we act according to our natures that need regeneration by God to a new birth of faith and repentance. We are free but in our depravity we choose evil! Apart from God's intervention and grace no one would get saved and believe.
In summation, God never coerces us to do anything we don't want to do--that's determinism, not destiny. We have input unlike the blind fate of Muslim kismet. However, God is able to make the unwilling willing and to change our hearts and minds to do His will for He is stronger and can influence us for the good--it's when He withdraws His grace that we turn evil. We must confess as did Jeremiah in Jer. 20:7, NKJV, "...You are stronger than I, and have prevailed (cf. Isa. 63:17; Phil. 2:13). It is said that He compels us to come in (literal translation of the Greek elko or woo). Soli Deo Gloria!
"So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16, NKJV).
[W]ho were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God [we don't will ourselves saved]" (John 1:13, NKJV).
"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake" (Philippians 1:29, NKJV).
"... And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48, NKJV).
"... [But] the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded [hardened]" (Romans 11:7, NKJV, emphasis added).
Luther was an Augustinian monk, and Augustine said that we are "free but not freed." We maintain our power to make choices as humans, but we have lost our liberty--we are slaves to sin, and, as he said, we are unable not to sin (non posse non peccare)--a double negative. It's like being in jail and having the freedom to play cards, but not to walk outside for recreation at will--there is a limit to freedom and it's not absolute. We are slaves to sin and our sin nature. We are free to choose our own poison and are, what has been termed by theologians, voluntary slaves--we love our sin and have no natural inclination to seek God or to love Him and only a work of grace in our hearts changes it from a "heart of stone to a heart of flesh" (cf. Ezek. 36:26).
We are still free to act according to our desires, but they are the wrong desires. As Ovid, the Roman poet of antiquity wrote: "I see the better things and I approve them, but I follow the worst." The law of God is written on man's heart and he is culpable for breaking it (cf. Romans 2:15). Romans 3:11 is God's pet peeve: "[N]o one understands; no one seeks for God."
Most believers have wrongly assumed and appropriated the Catholic view of free will, that we have the capability to gain entree to God's grace or admittance into His presence by the merit of a positive attitude and willingness to cooperate with Him in our salvation, known as a pre-salvation work; however, "Salvation is of the Lord" [not of man alone nor of man and the Lord as in a cooperative or synergistic venture] (cf. Jonah 2:9). That statement of Jonah is the summation of Reformed theology and we must never think that we would've responded to the gospel call without God's wooing. We have lost the inclination to please God and do His will. We were elected unto faith, not because of it (known as the fallacious prescient view repudiated in Romans 8:30), because this would be grounds for merit. "No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draw him" (cf. John 6:44).
In today's humanist worldview man is exalted and seen as having the free will to do as he wishes or wants to. Martin Luther told Erasmus in his tome, The Bondage of the Will, that "free will" was too grandiose a term to ascribe to our power of choice or to make decisions from our depraved, fallen volition. You must define terms when you speak of free will, because we do have the power to disobey God and to choose our desserts, but we cannot believe in Christ apart from God's grace and work in our heart.
Adam and Eve had free will and blew it: they had the power to sin and the power not to sin, while a fallen man can only sin and is unable not to sin. Adam made the choice for us to disobey God in our place, and we are in Adam and held accountable for his failure and this is known commonly as original sin--this inherited virus which is our birthright as humans--we have remained human, but are no longer good, but maintain solidarity in Adam and we share his predicament he had the fall--i.e., the natural inclination to good has been forfeited.
In defining total depravity, one must take into consideration that the mind is corrupt and faulty, the emotions are perverted and easily swayed by evil and corrupted, and the will also is defiant and disobedient to God and this means our whole nature--intellect, emotions or heart, and will or volition--is depraved and there is nothing meritorious or righteous in us to be worthy of salvation--"... And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6, NKJV) and "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23, ESV).
God is able (He's omnipotent and you cannot limit God) to make the unwilling, willing according to Scripture: He works irresistible or efficacious grace in our hearts according to His will ("For it is God who works in you, both to do and to will of his good pleasure," cf. Phil. 2:13). God never makes us do anything we don't want to do (that is coercion or determinism when we don't have input), and there is no outside force working on us like we're puppets on a string or automatons. We all act according to our nature, and God is our Maker and preordained and predetermined our nature, whether melancholy, choleric, or sanguine, for example.
If you think about it, the will have very little input into a decision compared to other uncontrollable factors like circumstances, DNA, and the environment (the old nature vs. nurture debate). It is a fallacy to assume we need free will to be saved, we need wills made free! "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed" (cf. John 8:36). We are not "born free" as some postulate, but born into a state of slavery to our sin nature. Left to ourselves, we would not choose Christ, as Pascal said: "I would not have searched for Thee, if Thou hadst not found me."
Our freedom is a curse because we choose the evil and the wrong course and God must intervene and change our heart, by taking the initiative and making the first move of grace. We are free to act as we choose according to our nature, just like a dove naturally eats seeds and a raven goes for the carrion. Our will is free in that we act voluntarily, and not by compulsion. We're voluntary slaves! God remains sovereign in spite of our free will and we cannot thwart His decrees or will and upset His plan--our freedom doesn't restrict God's sovereignty: "...Who can resist His will?" (Cf. Romans 9:19).
To think that we can act independently of God's will and disturb His plan is blasphemous and exalts man and dethrones God--this is the agenda of Secular Humanism, which believes man is the measure of all things and is the starting point of our understanding of reality, and not God the source of all truth ("In the beginning God...").
St. Augustine of Hippo said, "We are free but not free." This isn't a clever play on words but saying that we do as we choose but have lost our liberty. It's like being in jail and having the freedom to do anything according to the rules. Our natures are corrupt and we act according to our natures that need regeneration by God to a new birth of faith and repentance. We are free but in our depravity we choose evil! Apart from God's intervention and grace no one would get saved and believe.
In summation, God never coerces us to do anything we don't want to do--that's determinism, not destiny. We have input unlike the blind fate of Muslim kismet. However, God is able to make the unwilling willing and to change our hearts and minds to do His will for He is stronger and can influence us for the good--it's when He withdraws His grace that we turn evil. We must confess as did Jeremiah in Jer. 20:7, NKJV, "...You are stronger than I, and have prevailed (cf. Isa. 63:17; Phil. 2:13). It is said that He compels us to come in (literal translation of the Greek elko or woo). Soli Deo Gloria!