Seeking a Homeland for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come

Free will is a buzz word - it has a lot of baggage attached to it.  It is a non-biblical phrase that has its origins in humanistic thinking.  Is it inherently evil?  No.  Does it reflect our options before the God of the universe?  Only partly.  That's the problem with the term - free will implies the exclusion of predestination not because the words semantically exclude divine election, but because of the development of the ideology behind the words.

On account of this I prefer "human culpability" in lieu of "free will." "Human culpability" takes the emphasis off your choice as if you were at in intersection between Jesus street and Satan boulevard and places it on your godless, adulterating, King of King's murdering heart.  Despite our inability to choose on our own, we have been presented an opportunity, a lifeline by which we may make peace with God. This is the essence of the relationship between Total Depravity ("T") and Unconditional Election ("E").  We already stand guilty, because of our father, Adam, and our iniquity - the choice or "free will" comes in our response to the Gospel call and on account of this we are culpable in accepting it or denying it.  As one theologian puts it (my paraphrase) "divine election is not about God looking out at humanity through an ivory tower, as the plebeians (us) look up from their squalor hoping that they might be chosen to be saved from their fate - rather election is about God standing in the midst of our squalor and despair while we are running away from him as fast as we can and he in his abundant goodness and grace reaches out and saves a few here and saves a few there."

The assumptions of free will in the sense of "I choose God" or "I choose not God" miss the entire point of redemptive history ----- time and time again we have chosen sin over the joy of the Savior - Eden, Cain and Abel, Israel Monarchy, Israel today, me when I choose comfortable pleasures of sin over taking joy in the Son of the Most High.  The main thrust of our feelings toward God in the bible are not "will we choose God or won't we?" It is "WE HATE GOD!" period.

So all of that to say - I don't like the term free will - it must be caveated to the point where you are talking on the same terms before it can be a useful starting point for dialogue.  The main question we have to ask is "why do we care about free will?"  I conclude that any attempt to force free will in the modern sense upon the biblical narrative must ignore 2/3's of Scripture in the process.  Perhaps the best passage that illustrates divine election and human culpability is the call of Isaiah.

“In the year that King Uzziah died (739 BC by the way if you were wondering) I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” 

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” 

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:1–8 ESV)