Free Will

I'll make this short because it's such a hot topic and I don't need to make anyone mad. I was just talking to a friend about "free will" and he asked a question I couldn't answer.

Let's define "free will" as "the ability to choose what I want without coercion." That's the simplest version I can think of. People will go to great lengths to defend that "free will". I am assured from many Christians that God would never intrude on Man's free will. To do so would be wrong. Pointing to a passage like Gen. 20:1-7, where God specifically tells someone, "I kept you from sinning" doesn't seem to phase them. Man's free will is sacrosanct. "God doesn't want robots." As if that is the basis for all biblical truth, the end-all of the conversation.

So then we read this from Paul:

¹⁵ I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me (Rom. 7:15-20).

It begs the question, doesn't it? If Paul doesn't do what he wants to do, exactly how free is his will? If he does the things he hates, exactly how free is his will? Sure, it is "sin that dwells within me" that causes him to do what he doesn't want, but it is within him, not external. "So," my friend wanted to know, "exactly how free is free will?"