Yes. People have a will. The will is a person's emotional drive to act. But according to predestination, the human will is not free. Our will is the product of God's work, and is used by God to determine our actions.
For the most part, you are correct, and you are wrong.
Man does have a will, but as to the extent that it is free, that is the issue.
People have this delusional mind-set, like most Catholics that the doctrine of predestination makes people robots. That they cannot act in any manner contrary to what God has ordained to happen. And that simply isn't true.
Predestination sets the goal, not the path.
Our will is not always "the product of God's work". Yes, God did harden Pharoah's heart, but it also says Pharoah hardened his own heart also.
Back to the issue at hand. How "free" is mans "free-will"?
Arthur W. Pink defines "free-will" as:
What is the Will? We answer, the will is the faculty of choice, the immediate cause of all action. Choice necessarily implies the refusal of one thing and the acceptance of another. The positive and the negative must both be present to the mind before there can be any choice. In every act of the will there is a preference—the desiring of one thing rather than another. Where there is no preference, but complete indifference, there is no volition. To will is to choose, and to choose is to decide between two or more alternatives. But there is something which influences the choice; something which determines the decision. Hence the will cannot be sovereign because it is the servant of that something. The will cannot be both sovereign and servant. It cannot be both cause and effect. The will is not causative, because, as we have said, something causes it to choose, therefore that something must be the causative agent. Choice itself is affected by certain considerations, is determined by various influences brought to bear upon the individual himself, hence, volition is the effect of these considerations and influences, and if the effect, it must be their servant; and if the will is their servant then it is not sovereign, and if the will is not sovereign, we certainly cannot predicate absolute "freedom" of it. Acts of the will cannot come to pass of themselves—to say they can, is to postulate an uncaused effect. Ex nihilo nihil fit—nothing cannot produce something.
Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, Chapter 7, The Sovereignty of God and the Human Will.
7. God's Sovereignty and the Human Will
Lets look back at Noah's time.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." -Gen. 6:5 (KJV)
Now, a year after the flood and it was time for Noah to come out, see what is recorded:
"I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;" -Gen. 8:21 (KJV)
Now, some 1200-1500 years later, we read:
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" -Jer. 17:9 (KJV)
Now, lets jump ahead to Jesus and see what He says:
"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man:" -Mt. 15:18-20 (KJV)
The scriptures make it abundantly clear that the will is not sovereign and it is not "free". The heart is the controling factor and not the will. Hence:
But there is something which influences the choice; something which determines the decision. Hence the will cannot be sovereign because it is the servant of that something. The will cannot be both sovereign and servant.
Ibid
Man cannot just one day be walking down the sidewalk and think to himself that he is gonna stop sinning and obey God.
Man does not say I chose to accept God because I chose to of my own free will.
God does the drawing, the Holy Spirit does the convicting and regenerating.
The Psalmist says:
"
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." -Psa. 51:10 (KJV)
It isn't until you have been regenerated and given a new heart that your will is somewhat free.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." -Jn. 8:32 (KJV)
Free from what?
Free from the bondage to sin.
A.W. Pink also comments:
The sinner is ‘free’ in the sense of being unforced from without. God never forces the sinner to sin. But the sinner is not free to do either good or evil, because an evil heart within is ever inclining him toward sin. Let us illustrate what we have in mind. I hold in my hand a book. I release it; what happens? It falls. In which direction? Downwards; always downwards. Why? Because, answering the law of gravity, its own weight sinks it. Suppose I desire that book to occupy a position three feet higher; then what? I must lift it; a power outside of that book must raise it. Such is the relationship which fallen man sustains toward God. Whilst Divine power upholds him, he is preserved from plunging still deeper into sin; let that power be withdrawn, and he falls—his own weight (of sin) drags him down. God does not push him down, anymore than I did that book. Let all Divine restraint be removed, and every man is capable of becoming, would become, a Cain, a Pharaoh, a Judas. How then is the sinner to move heavenwards? By an act of his own will? Not so. A power outside of himself must grasp hold of him and lift him every inch of the way. The sinner is free, but free in one direction only—free to fall, free to sin. As the Word expresses it: "For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness" (Rom. 6:20). The sinner is free to do as he pleases, always as he pleases (except as he is restrained by God), but his pleasure is to sin.
Ibid.
Man does have a will, but to the extent that it is free, it is a servant to sin and until that bondage is broken, mans will is never truly free.
For further reading, try "
The Bondage of the Will" by Martin Luther.
Great book!
God Bless
Till all are one.
