Since by nature we not only have a disposition to sin but sin in our nature, he asks whether or not human beings possess freedom of choice. He defends freedom of will, however, only to a limited extent: Certainly, those who are outside of Christ do still make voluntary choices-that is, they decide what they want to do, then they do it. In this sense there is still a kind of "freedom" in the choices that people make.Yet because of their inability to do good and to escape from their fundamental rebellion against God and their fundamental preference for sin, unbelievers do not have freedom in the most important sense of freedom-that is, the freedom to do right, and to do what is pleasing to God. (Grudem).
Robert Culver, too, speaks about the nature of sin in own book, and time and time again he returns one basic understanding of sin being: "Lack of conformity to divine law, therefore, constitutes sin as sin." (Culver 350). However, Culver runs into a certain problem. God's will and moral standard is depicted in the Law of God, but apparently 1 John 3:4, though appearing to define sin, does not sufficiently define sin. He paradoxically states, "many good theologians have defined sin as lack of conformity to the character or will of God which, when expressed in any manner at all, is the law of God. This is not to say sin is defined as lawlessness in Scripture, though 'sin is lawlessness' (1 John 3:4) reads like a definition." However, he later admits that every word in the original language used to describe sin somehow has "reference either to failure to come up to the standard of divine law or to breaking divine law." It would probably be worthy to note that Culver's rejection of 1 John 3:4 as a definition of sin probably stems from his own presupposition of what sin actually is.
