...could the Calvinist here refute this claim that Calvinists do not believe in free will?
And can any here provide evidence of free will in the new testament?
I know it was seen as a sacrifice or offering in Judaism in favor of following the direction of man ordained by GOD, but am curious as to others opinions.
Thanks in advance,
Peace
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Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter IX "Of Free Will."
Chapter IX
I. God has endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined good, or evil.
II. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God; but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.
III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
IV. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, or only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.
V. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.
The issue is not whether man has a free will, Calvinists would certainly argue that man does. The question is whether the free will is absolute or whether it has been damaged in the fall. Calvinists would usually hold that there are limitations on the exercise of one's free will, and further that the change from Adam's free will precludes any self-salvation. To argue that Adam fell on the basis of free will choice and action and so all can choose to be saved on the basis of free will choice is to ignore the fact that humanity was changed in the fall.
It seems to me that there is no good non-Calvinist anthropology which would make a free will self-salvation a viable belief system.