Free will necessitates the freedom to make any conceivable choice at any spontaneous moment, but it also demands that the choosing agent is capable of choosing the 'right' choice, that is, the choice of greatest good, etc. In every choosing scenario there is a greatest good choice. In every situation, the right decision is the one pleasing and praising to God. If this choice is reckoned unavailable to the natural, unrepentant man then free will is equally unavailable.
It is not enough to see the ability to choose as the definition of free will. No. Free will demands that the one freely making the choice can choose the 'correct' choice, that is, the choice of most rightness, i.e. God. But because of sin, man is not able to make the very choice they need to; the freedom to choose the right choice is forfeited. As such, free will is rendered unavailable to the natural man.
Only if the natural man is transformed, reborn as it were, can he posses the freedom of will to choose God. Some would say that the natural man has a certain free will in his ignorance, but knowledge is insufficient to transform the natural man. Knowing I cannot move my limbs does nothing to make them more usable; a quadriplegic cannot run a marathon without new legs!
Desire is the determinant for decision making. It is cognitive desire which assesses the greatest desired end that becomes the discriminating factor between two like choices. For instance, if I can choose between a carrot and a cheeseburger, my choice will almost always be the cheeseburger because my own personality sees that as the greater choice; my own desire determines which choice I will make.
Moreover, the natural man will not choose God for he understands that he stands condemned already. If all the choices of the world were stacked up alongside the choice of God, the natural man will most certainly choose anything other than God because his nature constrains him to reject and spurn anything of God. He is not only unable to choose God but, even more so, he is determined against God in his heart, meaning he would not choose God even if he were able to do so.
If I am unable in my flesh to choose God or even to be able to please God then we must say that I do not have freedom of will in the utmost sense. If our ability to choose means that I must have the right to choose the ultimate good then any deficiency in this regard should be carried through the entirety of the system.
If I cannot choose God then I do not actually possess free will because I am utterly incapable of choosing that which is the ultimate definition of choice. Why would Jesus say man must be born again if it is not because the man as is will not be able to willfully choose God. Only a reborn man can choose God at all.
Additionally, if the unbeliever can only make choices that do not please God and is unable to do otherwise, then we must conclude that he does not have free will on the true sense. The decisions and choices made are but shadows and perceptions of choice, they are not actual choices because he is unable to make the only choice that matters: to love God.
Taken altogether it can be reasonably asserted that free will, as we might conceive of it, is an ability, it turns out, that only the man called and transformed by God possesses. Any conception of free will that neglects the fact that the freedom to choose God must be present would be, as it were, a deficient concept amputated of freedom and of will. While this may seem like philosophical philandering, it does affect how we do life and how we understand the human condition. We would do well to dwell on what we mean by choice, freedom, will, et al.
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