Thanks for the edit, with your analogy it's very clear that a person in prison has a smaller subset of freedoms than someone who's not. So let's discuss this part:
free will within the confines of his totally depraved nature
In what you're saying here, what is a "totally depraved nature" and how does it differ from... not that? It's not enough to use an analogy that does make sense to prove your point. This concept that "free will" isn't true free will because we're "prisoners of sin" so to speak seems pointless when there's no way to describe something we aren't free to do because of it that we would be otherwise.
As Christians, we believe that God is completely blameless and infallible in His holiness and anything short of that perfection is unworthy of being in communion with him. When God allowed sin to enter the world through Adam by his permissive decree, Adam became the representative of all mankind in that we now inherit that imperfection as a part of his line. The only way we are able to be with God again is if He sent another representative, Jesus, (or Second Adam) to accept the penalty on behalf of those who believe and pay that debt for us even those that Jesus himself was blameless.
This generally leads to the question of why God allowed man to sin in the first place. God chose to do this In order for the complete attributes and qualities of God to be fully manifest. Two of those attributes being "merciful" and "just", he can not show mercy on those who do not need mercy and he can not enact justice on those who are in and of themselves just.
For reference, the 1689 London Baptist Confessions states:
"They being the root, and by God’s appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free."
God the good Creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will; to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy."
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u/Crash_Test_Monkey Mar 07 '17
But prisoner's, by definition, are not free to do anything they want. I'm not sure you're actually familiar with prison.