It's Not My Will

My professor at Southwestern used this example in class one day:

Let's say your favorite ice cream is butter pecan.

Let's also say you're on a trip to Alabama from wherever you are and you pass a sign that says that the best butter pecan ice cream is made at the shop at the next exit.

First question: How free are you to choose whether or not you stop? Well, there are factors that play into that decision right? Are you on a diet? Did you just eat 13 hamburgers and you're full? Did you promise the spouse or neighbor that you'd lay off the butter pecan?
Okay what if all the opposites of those are true. What if you are really hungry and you promised the spouse you'd eat more ice cream?

Okay let's move on. Let's say you decide to stop. Let's say you're in the shop.

How free are you to choose whatever flavor of ice cream in the store? Yes, of course you could walk in there and choose chocolate, but why would you? Maybe you walk in the store and the guy scooping out the butter pecan looks like he takes a firm stance against the practice of showering. Maybe you feel like eating chocolate all the sudden.

Question: are you in control of the factors that come into play to make the decision. I'd say rarely (if ever). What if you hate strawberry ice cream... would choose that? no way... you hate it. Did you control your taste? no.

I think the main idea (question to ask self) is: What is your interpretation of free will?

I believe to be truly free you must be completely free to choose whatever you will without a force beyond your control influencing your decision.

I think there is merit to the compatibilist idea that determinism and free will aren't mutually exclusive. However, the more I've examined my own life and choices I've made; I choose (the choice, I believe, determined by outside or past events/influences) to define free will as I earlier stated. Compatibilists would say that free will is choosing anything when not forced to do so.
I, however, think the 'forced to do so' idea is insidious in our very nature. People choose lines of work that they are good at or enjoy, they paint in colors they like, eat food they like, are friends with whom they like, marry whom they like.

If people were deciding in droves to to do things that they hate (eat, play, work etc) then I think I would buy more into the idea that we are completely free.

I would say, however, that people do (on occasion) do exactly the opposite of what they would like. Many times that is out of another person's need. Someone may help a stranger when they'd rather be in bed.
So, what then, are the factors influencing that decision? guilt maybe, compassion, a sense of God's will and calling? Still factors that the person does not create. They may encourage growth in an area (such as being more compassionate) in their life but I would say that even the idea to encourage that growth is from an outside source. I, of course, though believe in total depravity of man and believe the good in us is from only God.

All factors that lead a person ... lead them to do something... to make a decision are Other originated. I think for a person to think that they came up with an idea that is good doesn't accurately acknowledge the Creator.
I think I can get behind the idea of compatibilism but I definitely cannot get behind the idea of libertarianism. To dismiss the causal effect of past events on present decisions is bizarre.

That's really all I wanted to address but because I can...
and to address two other issues people have with the complete sovereignty of God without going into them ad nauseum. Here are some brief thoughts on Election (first paragraph) and Limited Atonement (second paragraph):

The Canons of Dort are where the 5 points of Calvinism were introduced.
According to a great source:
The central assertion of these canons is that God is able to save every person upon whom he has mercy and that his efforts are not frustrated by the unrighteousness or the inability of humans.
source:
An additional point of disagreement with Arminianism (free will) implicit in the five points is the Calvinist understanding of the doctrine of Jesus' substitutionary atonement as a punishment for the sins of the elect, which was developed by St. Augustine and especially St. Anselm and Calvin himself. Calvinists argue that if Christ takes the punishment in the place of a particular sinner, that person must be saved since it would be unjust for him then to be condemned for the same sins. The definitive and binding nature of this satisfaction model has strong implications for each of the five points, and it has led Arminians to subscribe instead to the governmental theory of the atonement. Under that theory, no particular sins or sinners are in view, but all mankind are included in those whose sins have been taken away. The atonement was not the penalty of the law, but a substitute for the penalty, which allows God to remit the penalty by his grace when any sinner repents and believes the Gospel.

and now some verses:
No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44

And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father." John 6:65

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed Acts 13:48

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:11-13

The LORD kills, and makes alive: he brings down to Sheol, and raises up.
The LORD makes poor and rich: he brings low, He also exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts up the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with nobles, and inherit a seat of honor: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he set the world upon them.
He will keep the feet of his godly ones, and the wicked are silenced in darkness; for not by might shall a man prevail. 1 Samuel 2:6-9

And a certain woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Acts 16:14

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit Titus 3:5

You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you. John 15:16

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Ephesians 1:4-11

and finally the most forceful and clear Romans 9

my favorite ice cream is either Mint Chocolate Chip or Toasted Almond Fudge... depending on my mood.