1. God has endowed the will of man with natural liberty and power to act on choices so that it is neither forced nor inherently bound by nature to do good or evil.1
1Matthew 17:12; James 1:14; Deuteronomy 30:19.
2. Man in the state of innocence had freedom and power to will and to do what was good and well-pleasing to God.2 Yet this condition was unstable, so that he could fall from it.3
2Ecclesiastes 7:29. 3Genesis 3:6.
3. Man, by falling into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability to choose any spiritual good that accompanies salvation.4 Thus, natural mana is absolutely opposed to spiritual good and dead in sin,5 so that he cannot convert himself by his own strength or prepare himself for conversion.6
awithout the Spirit
4Romans 5:6; Romans 8:7. 5Ephesians 2:1, 5. 6Titus 3:3–5; John 6:44.
4. When God converts sinners and transforms them into the state of grace, He frees them from their natural bondage to sin7 and by His grace alone enables them to will and to do freely what is spiritually good.8 Yet because of their remaining corruption, they do not perfectly nor exclusively will what is good but also will what is evil.9
7Colossians 1:13; John 8:36. 8Philippians 2:13. 9Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 21, 23.
5. Only in the state of glory is the will made perfectly and unchangeably free toward good alone.10
10Ephesians 4:13.
