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It goes deeper than an exercise of the will.
The Holy Spirit changes our disposition in his gift of the new birth.
Our will acts according to our disposition.
The unregenerated are disposed toward sin, and
the regenerated are disposed toward God.
Free will is simply choosing without external constraint or force.
But your disposition determines your choice.
Hope that helps.
Here is a little fragment I wrote not too long ago on this verse, from my theWord notes:
2 Peter 3:9 is commonly used by Arminians as a proof text for their doctrines of Conditional Election and Universal Atonement. To them this is a proof that the atonement of Christ made it possible for anyone to be saved. Their interpretation is that God does not will that anyone perish.
There are several problems with their mistaken interpretation. The immediate problem is (for them), is failure to acknowledge the context of "US", which interpretes the following "any" and "all". The proper understanding of this passage of Scripture is: the Lord is not willing that any of His elect should perish, but that they all should come to repentance.
Further context proving this is verse 8 where Peter uses the term "beloved", and the greater context of the same letter where Peter states the intended audience of his epistle
2 Peter 1:1 "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:"
Clearly the intended audience is Christians, the elect, whom have obtained precious faith in Jesus Christ.
Finally, if we assume the Arminian interpretation to be correct, we would have to conclude all throughout history the vast majority of humanity has managed to frustrate and thwart the will of God, since God surrenders His sovereign will, to the will of his creatures! The God of Scripture is not a lonely old man hoping, begging, and pleading for people to come to Him, the God of Scripture is sovereign over man in every respect, and all of the glory goes to God.
Your problem is one gets to be an elect by repenting so the elect do not need to repent. They already have repented. That is why they are the elect.
Amen!
The will (ie the faculty of choice) is not sovereign to our desires, but subservient to them.
The will's job is to choose what the person desires. You can't work in reverse from this process. Makes no sense to first determine to desire what you want to choose.
I don't think we chose our desires. I think we chose to act on our desires or not.
Your problem is one gets to be an elect by repenting so the elect do not need to repent. They already have repented. That is why they are the elect.
When will you give up hope in man to love, and put your hope in God, who loves His children unconditionally?
Some folks around here would rather be loved conditionally it seems.
Some folks around here would rather be loved conditionally it seems.
I understand why people see God in that light, afterall how do people love one another? Even the people closest to us have expectations and react to our failure to meet those expectations. Conditional love is so ingrained into us, the concept of unconditional love it is difficult to even consider or comprehend unconditional love. The sad part is, and most of us have been guilty, we make the love of God out to be just like the love of man, patterned after man (making God into the image of man, rather than man the [shattered] image of God), when the love of God is so much greater, by far superior (supreme) to the way men love.
Roman 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were enemies, while we were hostile in our minds to God, while we figuratively spit in Christ face....He died for us, and loved us who were unloving and we deserving the same punishment as any other sinner, God has had mercy on, because He wanted to display in us the riches of His mercy and grace. We would be hard pressed to find a person who would lay down their life for their friends, much more their enemies.
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