People's will is a byproduct of their nature and their circumstances. So each person is freely making a choice, even though circumstances and personal disposition etc. may have had a bearing on that decision. Circumstances may be a factor when making decisions, but circumstances in and of themselves do not coerce or manipulate into choosing one way or other (for example, after 10 days of being lost in the wilderness and then being rescued and offered a nice meal, circumstances would seem to suggest that naturally, the person would jump at the opportunity to rejuvenate him/herself... but for various reasons, the person might choose otherwise... i.e. the person has grown to like being in survival mode and wants to go at it for longer, or maybe the person is mad about being rescued and is so mad he/she cannot eat or doesn't want to eat, or maybe the food was one of the foods he/she had bad memories of and therefore couldn't stand to eat it no matter how hungry they are, or maybe the person was overwhelmed by gratitude and had no appetite, or maybe the person really just wants to shower first and won't eat until after showering, or maybe the person's body metabolism really shut down and the person knows not to rush in solild foods but wants to request liquid foods due to his/her knowledge about his/her own body's reactions, etc.etc. ) . Point being, for a given situation and given circumstance, the circumstances alone do not dictate or force a person to a certain choice. Even in the face of grave adversity or hopelessness, when one thinks there's really no other choice but to give up and give in, some people still choose against what circumstances would dictate, or even when it seems to make the most sense to go this route that is a win-win situation, some people still choose to go the other way. So point being... man has free will in situations...
But of course God knows everything and in His sovereignty arranges things so that people choose a certain way... God knows how each person is wired (because He wired us!) and He knows how each person will react to a given situation... so effectively God arranges how things will turn out but it's still man that's making the free choice... And God is perfect so He doesn't make mistakes like He guessed this person would choose A when in fact the person chose B. God knows everything and doesn't guess the outcome but knows the outcome, and everything that transpires is according to His sovereignty, even if it seems like it doesn't make sense and we suspect that God was thwarted by man's will.
Adam's free will had the capacity to choose to sin or go towards God, but God did arrange so that Adam would choose to sin even though Adam could have chosen to be with God. God did it this way because somehow it resulted in greater glory. The rest of us have free will only in that we can choose to sin, or not, but we cannot in and of ourselves choose God. With the atonement of Jesus Christ, our options expand from sinning vs. not sinning, to include another choice, which is to choose to accept what Jesus did and accept Him as our savior. Any other choice is rejecting God. So just like Adam had free will, we have free will to choose God or not, with the external help of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. The difference is that Adam had the capability to choose God in and of himself, without Jesus, but the rest of us cannot choose God without going through Jesus.
Again, note that this free will we have does not make God inferior because God is still completely sovereign over the entire situation. He orchestrates things so that people choose a certain way, so humans cannot thwart God's will. God is all powerful and no human can thwart His will. We established this because the general man does not have free will that can trump God, since God is really still in control even though we exercise free will. God chooses us or does not choose us. We do not choose to accept or reject God without Him first choosing us.
And again, God could have arranged it so that Adam would not have chosen sin, but God didn't do it that way because somehow, doing it the way He did resulted in greater glory. As for the rest of us, yes, God could have arranged it so that, through the combination of how He created us and the lives He's placed us in, we would all end up choosing God through Jesus, but for some reason He didn't do it that way, because doing it the way He's doing it results in greater glory. I know this is a huge and difficult thing to accept... but one thing to keep in mind is that the ultimate goal of God is not to save everybody...
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