Ezekiel 36 and Free Will

The issue of human free will often comes up in theological discussion and sometimes proves to be a sticking point. For a lot of people, the complete libertarian freedom of human beings is a non-negotiable fact. You can't get away from it. We all make choices of our own free will, choices which determine our eternal destiny. Any attempt to say free will is in any way limited is resisted because it would mean our love for God is limited, or needs to be coerced by God. God does not want us to be robots, but people who freely choose to love him, in response to his love for is.

I find that I can only partly agree with this view. Free will and the choice to love and do right are important, but I believe that God, in his parental love, allows us the gift of freedom within safe limits just as any responsible parent or schoolteacher does for the children in their care. I agree with Tom Talbott, author of The Inescapable Love of God that God will not allow anybody to do something which will cause them irreparable harm. There is a stage where the loving God steps in and puts his body on the line to save his erring child. God does not stand by helplessly or stubbornly saying "I told her it was dangerous" as his disobedient child runs into the road...

This kind of discussion usually reaches an uncomfortable impasse or diverts into the murky waters of compatibilism. But I noticed something in Ezekiel 36:27 this morning which might encourage us to think of free will in a different way.

Here it is in the NRSV "I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances."  Ezekiel 36:27

The TNIV translates it slightly differently "And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." 

I'm just thinking out loud here, but I wonder how this teaching about the Holy Spirit relates to ideas of human freedom and free will. What is freedom if God makes us do the right thing? Or perhaps an armwrestle goes on inside us (Romans 7?) as we resist the Spirit and go our own way. But surely there can only be one winner in such an armwrestle?

What do others think?

Choosing to accept God's grace?

Surely it is only by God's intervention/inspiration/guidance that anybody is capable of making a right choice? That's what I think the Bible teaches. Consistent with this, christian universalist writers sometimes argue that a fully informed rejection of God's grace is inconceivable. Nobody, not even the most intelligent, well-informed and spiritually mature individual on the planet, can make a fully informed choice (try answering the questions addressed to Job in Job 38-40!). But one day everybody will be able to, thanks to God's ability to heal and educate us and above all thanks to God's love which never ends and never fails. So whether you come at it from a calvinist or an arminian angle, I believe there's only one way this show is going to end