The bondage of the will to evil doesn't mean they cannot make decisions but that their decisions will always be tainted by, to the purpose of, evil.
Of course
Therefore the ability to make decisions is NOT the definition of a free will.
Also, of course.
But the ability to decide according to one's own will IS the definition of free will, if there is such a thing as free will.
In GOD's creation in which HE cannot create any evil or force it upon anyone, the only sure sign anyone has a free will is the ability to rebel against HIM, the ability to choose evil and thereby become an evil person perpetuating evil with every choice.
Why does the question, "in which HE cannot create any evil or force it upon anyone" even come up, concerning God? The fact is irrelevant, concerning free will. But also, the fact is, the whole statement seems to me to proceed from a temporal, human-centered mindset. We love to say what God can and cannot do, instead of saying what he does and does not do. God doesn't decide to do a righteous thing because it is righteous to do. He simply
does, and according to his nature, the thing he does is righteous.
Agreed that the ability to rebel against HIM is astounding. To me, it makes no sense, but there it is anyway. To me then, it is worse than outrageous, and would 'tear the space-time continuum to pieces', but for the power of God to hold things together during this temporal 'envelope', until he has returned all authority to himself. The corruption of the work of God that sin is, is a horror beyond the mere nature of any being. 'Free will' is among the least of considerations in the subject. None of us has the slightest understanding of just how bad we have been, by comparison to the payment Christ has made on the behalf of those whom he has redeemed.
Righteous moral holiness must obviously be chosen by a free will or it is as meaningless as claiming a dvd song of worship is true worship but acting morally does not have the same proof value that we are following GOD by our free will and not by the coercion of fear, selfishness, or mental manipulation from GOD like a Stepford wife.
This, to me, is assessed and stated backwards. But to go with it: Righteous moral holiness is chosen by simple will —why the necessity for the word, "free"? Furthermore, in keeping with the notion that apart from Christ we can do nothing (no hyperbole there), even our good decisions are the result of the Spirit of God within us. It God who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. We are not robots, but we are holy only by Christ's substitution. We DO holy, by the Spirit within us —our very changed nature is by the unity we call 'Christ in us'.
The jibes of the atheist that our worship must be caused by a Borg like bondage to HIS will cannot be refuted by logic but only in ourselves as we are trained in righteousness, choosing to melt further and further into total accord with HIS goodness.
Both this that the atheist thinks, and this statement from you, seem of a common mindset, that this temporal existence (whether characterized by freewill or not) is the base reality. We think it is what is, when it is only what God is doing in us right now. NO! The base reality, concerning us, is our identity in Christ, spoken into reality/existence by God himself, or, for the one who will not repent, the base reality concerning him is his use by God. This temporal existence, where we fight over terminology and P'sOV as to the ontological personhood of creatures, is only God's tool to accomplish that which is already spoken into existence.