Only God has free will. Man has a will.
God wills with nothing from any outside source pressuring or affecting His will. He wills as He desires. His will is free from any outside influence. Man, however, has many outside influences weighing upon his will, both in the physical and spiritual realm. Man is oft times placed in a position where there is no right answer but he must decide one way or another. He doesn't want to make the decision, but he must. His will is not free. His will is that he was never in this position. But he is and can do nothing about it. He must decide. His will is not free.
A man says I have free will and I will show you. I will jump out of a window in the 20th floor of a 20 story building. OK, jump. But when he jumps, what is his will? He wills that he could get back to that window. But he can't. He doesn't get his will. His will is affected by gravity. And so you don't have a multitude of people jumping out of buildings because gravity will affect that decision. But gravity doesn't affect God's will. He can come and go out that window all day long. His will is free to choose to go out that window if He wants to. Yours is not.
Unless you can control all things that act upon your will, you do not have 'free will'. And only God can do that.
OK, you don't agree that fallen man cannot of his own will, come to God. Understand that your 'will' comes into play but it will only choose to follow God if God works upon your will to do so. If left to yourself, to your own choosing, you will not choose God. Thus God's Spirit must first work upon your will. (John 1:12-13) "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 3:8) "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit."
So even though you will exercise your will, it is only because God has influenced your will to the degree that you will come to Him. And He does that to you, because He has chosen you. (2 Thess. 2:13) "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:"
God not only chooses you, but He chooses the way by which you will come to Him. You will come to God through the exercise of your will. But later you will see that you chose Him because He first chose you.
Stranger
And herein is the problem.
You do not explain free will in the parameters of Christianity.
Free will DOES NOT mean you can jump out of a window if you will it and fly.
If you don't have the meaning of free will, of course you won't agree with it.
Free will merely means the ability to make a moral choice. It's the ability to choose sinning over not sinning, God over satan. Of course this will require outside influences...it requires putting our mind and our soul to work to understand which side of the great spiritual divide we wish to be on. This is ALL free will means.
John 3:6
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Natural man, flesh, will tend toward sin because his master is satan, once a person is born again, he will tend toward good because his master is God.
Romans 6:6
From the beginning of time God has given us the ability to choose:
Deuteronomy 30:19 admonishes us to choose life when given the choice of life and death.
Joshua 24:15 Joshua tells the people to choose whom they will serve.
their answer? "Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods." It is their CHOICE to serve God or other gods.
In Mark 1:15 Jesus says to "repent and believe in the gospel".
Why is repentance necessary if it will be God who does the choosing?
Why is it necessary to send missionaries to foreign lands if God is going to choose who will be saved?
If Jesus tells us to repent and BELIEVE in the gospel, it means we have the free will choice to do this or He would not have said it.
Adam and Eve had free will to choose to eat the fruit. God said He made everything good. Then they CHOSE to eat the forbidden fruit. Please show me WHEN this free will was taken away from them. Scripture please. No stories about angels, fallen angels, fallen man, we all know this and it has nothing to do with free will. The angels also fell due to free will.
The absolutely worst part of Unconditional Election is that it makes God out to be a monster; choosing who will be saved and who will be lost. Thus making Him out to be a God without love for His creation and a God with no justice who does not give persons the opportunity to be saved, but arbitrarily sends them to hell.
This is NOT the God of the bible I read.