Why I need Grace and not Free Will

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:14

The biggest difference in most theologies and understandings about God is how one understands human freedom and divine grace. It is because of my own need for grace and my sense of the power of sin in my life that I find Calvin to win this debate every time. Calvin was indebted to Augustine and Augustine was indebted to Paul.
“He who is a slave to sin is free to sin” said St. Augustine. No one holds a gun to our heads and forces us to do wrong things. We choose them freely. And we do them because they hold an attraction to us. “Take away the love of sinning”, says the old hymn. We love it because it is our nature to do so.
Pop singer Tom Petty put this irony of human freedom, several years ago in his song, “Free Fallin”. It reflects the idea that sin has the “feeling” of being free. The problem however, is that a person who jumps off a tall building to assert their freedom suddenly submits themselves to a greater law, the law of physics, which says objects fall with increasing speed to the ground. Such freedom is short-lived.

She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It's a long day living in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard
And I'm a bad boy cause I don't even miss her
I'm a bad boy for breakin' her heart
And I'm free, free fallin'
Yeah I'm free, free fallin'

This is why we call the original sin of Adam and Eve as “the Fall”, because as a race we have been falling ever since. What appears to be freedom, or looks so innocent – “just a little sin”, is in reality another jump into a greater bondage, from which there is no escape. C.S. Lewis helps us to see how the Fall is relived in each of our lives on a daily basis.
“From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the centre is opened to it. This sin is committed daily….it is the fall in every individual life, and in each day of each individual life, the basic sin behind all particular sins: at this very moment you and I are either committing it, or about to commit it, or repenting it.” (The Problem of Pain.)

It is why on a moment to moment basis, I need to trust in the mercy of God and the grace He gives me in Christ Jesus. I am a bad boy, who needs grace in the form of Christ’s righteousness given to me freely. Falling into Christ is true freedom.