I suggest, instead, that Scripture is against their doctrine of free will (not that I deny the reality of free will, as I have said before). Rather, I deny their use of it, to mean that men have a will that can choose to seek and obey God. "Free" merely means without coercion. No one, including God, coerces the unregenerate to hate God and to rebel against Him. That is their nature, and they freely, even gladly, choose to act according to it, just as a bird freely wills to fly or a fish to breathe water. But the Arminian would never claim that a man is free to will either of those, since both are contrary to the nature of a man. However, the Arminian blanks out the logical parallel between that and a choice by the unregenerate to act regenerate.
Paul says, "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will" (II Timothy 2:25-26). Whose will does the sinner freely follow? Not his own. Rather, he wills the will of Satan. The coercion isn't by God, or predestination, but rather by Satan. Yet the Arminian never criticizes Satan for ignoring man's free will! That misdirection is very telling!
What breaks that bondage? It is only by the prevenient act of the Holy Spirit in regenerating the elect sinner. It is by this intervention that Jesus, in His kingly office, overthrows the power of Satan and brings that man to repentance and faith: "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, He takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil" (Luke 11:21-22).
Turning to Paul again, he summarizes this in Romans 9:16: "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy."
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