Hello Deborah,
I am often a little concerned about the question "are you a Calvinist." It is a fair question because it is kind of a theological short hand. The problem is that so few non-Calvinists understand what the term means. I attend a Reformed Baptist Church and am in agreement for the most part with the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
Concerning free will, that is also a complex question since often, so many people define free will as "the ability to choose." I would agree that we have the ability too choose. I get up and choose what shoe to put on first and what kind of breakfast I want to eat. I agree that we have the ability to choose any path of sin we desire, but because our nature so loves sin, we always desire sin and rebellion. It is only by the grace of God in regeneration that we will choose faith.
John 6:44 says: "No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day."
Notice the bold part of that verse. The greek word for "can" speaks of ability. While we cannot choose Christ without the drawing of the Father, we can choose our breakfast. We can choose to rebel against Christ. In John 6:44, God draws, we choose, and then we are saved. You can see that the concept of resurrection in verse 44 is related only to the saved. Notice the same reference to "raised up on the last day" is found also in verse 40:
Joh 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. So then, all those raised up to salvation were drawn by the Father, and all of those drawn by the Father were not able to come to Christ, but did by the power of the Fathers drawing.
And then the Father gets the glory.
Deborah13, this issue goes back long before Calvin. Pelagius vs Augustine had similar discussions. Luther wrote on the "Bondage of the Will" against the Roman Catholic scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam. That was before Calvin. There are issues of original sin, or sin nature that have to do with this discussion. There are also differing views on "prevenient grace." In my opinion, the issue revolves more around the concept and place of regeneration than anything else. There seems to be 3 positions....
1---Regeneration is for the elect only and unfailingly causes the faith of believers.
2---Universal Regeneration sometimes causes the faith of believers
3---Faith can come without any previenient work of grace.
The concept of a "limited atonement" is also very much misunderstood. In fact the term itself is a very bad term which causes much misunderstanding. A better term might be "Full Atonement." Above, a full and complete atonement is found only in #1. Only #1 leads unfailingly to salvation. In #2 and #3, Christ did not die to save anyone, but rather he provides only a possibility of salvation. Would you not agree that #2 and #3 are far more limited in their power to save? Actually, the non-Calvinists deserve the term "limited atonement" far more then the Calvinists do.
