Hi Vince,
We absolutely do have free will. Here's the situation: God created everything. He's letting us enjoy what He created, providing oxygen and rain, sunshine and plants and animals. Everyone has access to those things while they live, even the people who rail against God and/or say they don't believe He exists. But those people are not forced to go on being surrounded by what He has created, not forced to remain in His presence forever...they have a choice to reject that future. If they do, they are given what they desire: the absence of God, which means also the absence of all His good gifts. It would hardly be freewill, or fair, or loving, if after someone declared their desire to be rid of God, He forced them to be in His presence forever. Whether the Lake of Fire is a lake, or made of fire, or that language is an attempt to describe the most horrible thing imaginable--eternal separation from God--the idea is surely to make people consider what it is they are asking for. Like Lynn said, if you refuse the cake, you don't get to eat it. And if you refuse the cake, presumably it's because you DON'T WANT IT. If you don't want God, you don't have to have Him, and the consequences are just the natural outworking of that decision.
