Do humans have free will? Let me answer with a question: does a starving vulture have the freedom to prefer a fresh salad over rotting flesh?
Picture this: a gaunt vulture released into a room where two heaps of food await. One is a pile of fresh vegetables like kale, carrots, spinach. The other, a mound of decaying carcasses, the stench thick in the air. Which will the vulture choose? Without hesitation, it will lunge toward the rot and feast as though the greens beside it did not exist.
The vulture is completely free. No one compels it. No invisible hand guides or restrains it. Two choices lie before it, and it follows its nature.
So in what sense is the vulture free? And in what sense are humans free to “choose” God?
In light of the metaphor, some Christians hold to the idea of “omnivorous vultures,” as if the unregenerate person has a neutral appetite. But Scripture paints a different picture. The human will is enslaved to its desires, and those desires are bent. Left to ourselves, we do not desire, honor, or acknowledge God (1 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 4:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17).
We “choose” God only because God first chooses us. Because He softens our hearts, opens our eyes and ears, and changes our very nature so that our desires are transformed. Only then are we truly free.